Reconciliation Road: Willy Brandt, Ostpolitik and the Quest for European Peace 9781789207019

Citation preview

Reconciliation Road

Studies in Contemporary European History Editors: Konrad Jarausch, Lurcy Professor of European Civilization, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Henry Rousso, Senior Research Fellow at the Institut d’histoire du temps présent, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, Paris Recent volumes: Volume 25 Reconciliation Road: Willy Brandt, Ostpolitik and the Quest for European Peace Benedikt Schoenborn Volume 24 Resisting Persecution: Jews and Their Petitions during the Holocaust Edited by Thomas Pegelow Kaplan and Wolf Gruner Volume 23 Peace at All Costs: Catholic Intellectuals, Journalists, and Media in Postwar Polish–German Reconciliation Annika Elisabet Frieberg Volume 22 From Eastern Bloc to European Union: Comparative Processes of Transformation since 1990 Edited by Günther Heydemann and Karel Vodička Volume 21 Migration, Memory, and Diversity: Germany from 1945 to the Present Edited by Cornelia Wilhelm

Volume 20 Ambassadors of Realpolitik: Sweden, the CSCE and the Cold War Aryo Makko Volume 19 Wartime Captivity in the 20th Century: Archives, Stories, Memories Edited by Anne-Marie Pathé and Fabien Théofilakis Volume 18 Whose Memory? Which Future? Remembering Ethnic Cleansing and Lost Cultural Diversity in East, Central and Southeastern Europe Edited by Barbara Törnquist-Plewa Volume 17 The Long A ermath: Cultural Legacies of Europe at War, 1936–2016 Edited by Manuel Bragança and Peter Tame Volume 16 Memory and Change in Europe: Eastern Perspectives Edited by Małgorzata Pakier and Joanna Wawrzyniak

For a full volume listing, please see the series page on our website: h p://berghahnbooks.com/series/contemporary-european-history

RECONCILIATION ROAD Willy Brandt, Ostpolitik and the Quest for European Peace

( Benedikt Schoenborn

berghahn NEW YORK • OXFORD www.berghahnbooks.com

First published in 2020 by Berghahn Books www.berghahnbooks.com © 2020 Benedikt Schoenborn All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Schoenborn, Benedikt, author. Title: Reconciliation road : Willy Brandt, Ostpolitik and the quest for European peace / Benedikt Schoenborn. Other titles: Willy Brandt, Ostpolitik and the quest for European peace Description: New York : Berghahn Books, 2020. | Series: Contemporary European history; vol. 25 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020016093 (print) | LCCN 2020016094 (ebook) | ISBN 9781789207002 (hardback) | ISBN 9781789207019 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Brandt, Willy, 1913–1992. | German reunification question (1949–1990) | Germany (West)—Politics and government —1945–1990. | Germany—Foreign relations—1945– | Cold War. | Statesmen—Germany—Biography. | Prime ministers—Germany (West)—Biography. Classification: LCC DD259.4 .S2565 2020 (print) | LCC DD259.4 (ebook) | DDC 327.43009/045—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020016093 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020016094

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 978-1-78920-700-2 hardback ISBN 978-1-78920-701-9 ebook

To my parents

CONTENTS

( List of Illustrations

viii

Acknowledgements

ix

List of Abbreviations

x

Introduction

1

Chapter 1. Roads to Reconciliation

17

Chapter 2. The First Step – Coexistence (1955–66)

31

Chapter 3. Projecting East–West Reconciliation (1966–69)

60

Chapter 4. Summit Meetings as Icebreakers (1969–71)

92

Chapter 5. Developing New Frameworks (1971–74)

129

Chapter 6. Maintaining Contacts with the East (1974–92)

164

Conclusion

196

Bibliography

206

Index

227

Illustrations

( Figure 2.1. The construction of the Berlin Wall.

32

Figure 2.2. Willy Brandt addressing a crowd during his election campaign.45 Figure 3.1. Court inspection of the Auschwitz concentration camp.

67

Figure 4.1. Chancellor Brandt kneeling at the Warsaw Ghetto memorial.107 Figure 4.2. Soviet–German summit in Crimea.

121

Figure 5.1. Individual travellers crossing the inner German border.139 Figure 5.2. Lubomír Štrougal welcoming Willy Brandt to Prague.

143

Figure 6.1. Strikes in Gdańsk spark new developments in Eastern Europe.

176

Figure 6.2. Meeting of Mikhail Gorbachev and Willy Brandt in Moscow.187 Figure 7.1. Willy Brandt’s Kniefall as seen twenty years later.

200

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

( I am grateful for the financial and institutional support from Tampere University, where I dra ed and wrote this book, first at the Tampere Peace Research Institute (TAPRI) and then at the Institute for Advanced Social Research (IASR). I would like to thank the students at TAPRI, whose intellectual curiosity stimulated my study of academic approaches to reconciliation. I express my gratitude to the scholars and friends who shared their comments at various stages of my book project and to my colleagues at IASR for our inspiring discussions. Thanks are due to the many helpful librarians and archivists, notably at the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Bonn and at Tampere University Library. At Berghahn Books, my special thanks go to Chris Chappell and Mykelin Higham for their professional and supportive co-operation and to the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments. I am particularly grateful to Virginia Ma ila, whose linguistic skills and generous assistance helped me improve my manuscript throughout the writing process. To all those who encouraged my work in other ways I express my heartfelt thanks.

ABBREVIATIONS

( AAPD

Akten zur Auswärtigen Politik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland

ACDP

Archiv für Christlich-Demokratische Politik

AdsD

Archiv der sozialen Demokratie

AMAE

Archives du Ministère des Affaires Étrangères

BArch

Bundesarchiv

CDU

Christlich-Demokratische Union (Christian Democratic Union)

COMECON

Council for Mutual Economic Assistance

CSCE

Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe

CSU

Christlich-Soziale Union (Christian Social Union)

DAAD

German Academic Exchange Service

DzD

Dokumente zur Deutschlandpolitik

EC

European Communities

ECSC

European Coal and Steel Community

EEC

European Economic Community

EU

European Union

FDP

Freie Demokratische Partei (Free Democratic Party)

FES

Friedrich-Ebert-Sti ung (Friedrich Ebert Foundation)

FRG

Federal Republic of Germany

FRUS

Foreign Relations of the United States

GDR

German Democratic Republic

Abbreviations | xi

KGB

Commi ee for State Security

MBFR

Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions

NATO

North Atlantic Treaty Organization

NGO

Non-Governmental Organization

PA/AA

Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts

PAN

Polish Academy of Sciences

SALT

Strategic Arms Limitation Talks

SAP

Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei (Socialist Workers’ Party)

SDI

Strategic Defense Initiative

SED

Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (Socialist Unity Party of Germany)

SPD

Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (Social Democratic Party of Germany)

TRC

Truth and Reconciliation Commission

US

United States

UK

United Kingdom

UN

United Nations

USSR

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

WBA

Willy-Brandt-Archiv

WEU

Western European Union

INTRODUCTION

( Ostpolitik marked a turning point in European history a er the Second World War. It contributed decisively to propelling East–West confrontation towards negotiation and dialogue in the early 1970s and set the stage for European developments over the following two decades. Ostpolitik is a German term literally meaning ‘Eastern policy’ but in English is usually applied to the policy initiated by Willy Brandt, the West German chancellor from 1969 to 1974. Ostpolitik was a complex and, at the time, a highly controversial endeavour and met with both high acclaim and harsh opposition. From a scholarly viewpoint, Brandt’s Ostpolitik included several distinctive features that may be summarized in three main points. (1) As an integral part of East–West détente in the 1960s and 1970s, Ostpolitik was the West German contribution to relaxing Cold War tensions by normalizing political relations with the East. (2) Ostpolitik was an a empt to prepare the reunification of Germany in the long term, through a ‘policy of small steps’. (3) Ostpolitik aimed to address the consequences of the Nazi past and to initiate a process of reconciliation with the peoples of Eastern Europe. Because of its historical significance, a multitude of academics have researched and analysed Ostpolitik from various perspectives. The overwhelming majority of historical and political accounts scrutinize the first two points while the third element – reconciliation – has a racted much less a ention. Perhaps this is due to the reluctance of political scientists and scholars of political history to work with the term ‘reconciliation’, which sits somewhat uneasily with notions of power politics. By contrast, scholars interested in peace and conflict research have long discovered the wider relevance of Willy Brandt’s actions for reconciliation and o en perceive him as a role model. Yet these books and articles tend to adopt a selective approach and to describe only specific elements of Brandt’s contribution to reconciliation as chancellor. Arguably, if the political background and the long-term historical development of Ostpolitik are not included in the analysis, the interpretation of Brandt’s reconciliation policy remains either incomplete or inadequate. This book brings Notes for this chapter begin on page 14.

2 | Reconciliation Road

together the two approaches of historical and peace research and offers a comprehensive historical account of Brandt’s Ostpolitik from the viewpoint of reconciliation, covering the years from the mid-1950s until the end of the Cold War. The analytical guideline of reconciliation is particularly pertinent for addressing the long-term orientation of Ostpolitik and its inherent ambiguities. In the context of this book, I understand reconciliation as a process that starts when opponents come together, address the common past and envisage the possibility of a future ‘we’. All levels of society play their role in such a process of transforming a relationship of enmity, passing through the first step of coexistence towards mutual appreciation and friendship. The policy and objectives of a single individual – Willy Brandt – are very much the focus of this book. With the aid of his office he developed a new Ostpolitik, implemented it as chancellor and le its legacy to his successors. Hence, before focusing on the main topic, Ostpolitik and reconciliation, a biographical sketch of Brandt seems appropriate to summarize his career and some personal elements of his life. The following chapters provide only li le biographical detail. Willy Brandt was not actually his birth name but the Kampfname (fighting name) he adopted as an anti-Nazi activist in the early 1930s; it became his official name when he regained German citizenship in 1948. He was born Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm on 18 December 1913 in Lübeck, where northern Germany meets the Baltic Sea. His mother, Martha Frahm, was a nineteen-year old shop assistant and his father, John Möller, a bookkeeper from Hamburg who was wounded in the First World War and partly lost his memory.1 Father and son never met. Herbert grew up in modest circumstances in a working-class district of Lübeck with his mother’s stepfather, the truck driver Ludwig Frahm, assuming the role of a father figure. Following Ludwig Frahm’s lead young Herbert became involved in the activities of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and soon rose to a leading position within the party’s youth branch. Increasingly critical of the SPD’s acquiescence to the German government led by Heinrich Brüning, in October 1931 Herbert le the SPD and joined the radically le -wing Socialist Workers’ Party of Germany (SAP). When Adolf Hitler seized power in January 1933 the now illegal SAP decided to continue the fight against Nazism and Herbert Frahm started to use the cover name Willy Brandt to protect himself as a local leader in the ‘anti-fascist struggle’.2 In an effort to strengthen ties with the Norwegian Labour Party and to save him from impending arrest by the Nazi authorities, in April 1933 the SAP leadership sent the nineteen-year old Herbert/ Willy as their representative to Oslo. Willy Brandt spent almost the entire duration of the ‘Third Reich’ in Scandinavian exile. He quickly learned fluent Norwegian, applied him-

Introduction | 3

self unstintingly to the activities of the Norwegian Labour Party and published extensively to unmask the evils commi ed by Hitler’s dictatorial regime.3 In the process his political convictions grew closer to the programme of the Norwegian Labour Party and the Scandinavian type of social democracy. In October 1936 Brandt ventured on a trip to Berlin to establish contact with the SAP’s underground resistance and under a false identity stayed in the German capital for two months. His travels also included a visit to Spain as a political observer of the civil war, from March to June 1937. A er the German government revoked his citizenship, Brandt obtained a Norwegian passport. In April 1940, Nazi forces occupied Norway and he narrowly escaped from Oslo. To avoid being identified he let himself be captured in a Norwegian uniform and spent four weeks in a Nazi prisoner of war camp, unrecognized, and upon his release fled to neutral Sweden. His pregnant girlfriend Carlota Thorkildsen stayed behind, joining Brandt in Stockholm by May 1941 – together with their baby daughter Ninja – and marrying him two weeks later. They separated in early 1945. Brandt worked as a journalist in Stockholm until the end of the war and published extensively. In Stockholm he also forged lasting friendships with prominent European social democrats (e.g. Bruno Kreisky, Alva Myrdal) and in October 1944 formally rejoined the SPD. Six months a er the end of the war, in November 1945, he returned to Germany as a Norwegian journalist reporting on the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg and eventually accepted a job as press a aché at the Norwegian military mission in Berlin. His partner Rut Bergaust, originally from Norway, followed him from Stockholm to Berlin.4 Brandt was a first-hand witness to the rise of the Cold War between the wartime allies and to the partition of Germany into two states in 1949. Berlin became an island surrounded by East Germany. The city officially remained under the quadripartite authority of the Soviet Union, the United States, the United Kingdom and France (the ‘Four Powers’) and in reality, was divided into an Eastern and a Western part. Brandt had moved to Berlin in order to contribute to Germany’s reconstruction and le the Norwegian mission a er one year for a position as representative of the SPD executive commi ee in Berlin. In this capacity he served as liaison between the Western allies and the city administration during the eleven-month ‘Berlin blockade’ of 1948–49, when the Soviet government unsuccessfully tried to sever the ties between West Berlin and the Western zones of Germany. Following elections, Brandt assumed local political responsibilities within the SPD and in September 1949 became a Berlin member of the Bundestag, the newly created West German parliament. His career accelerated a er his election as president of West Berlin’s state parliament in 1955. The Brandt family also expanded. Rut and Willy were

4 | Reconciliation Road

married in September 1948 and one month later celebrated the birth of their first child, Peter. Their second son, Lars, was born in June 1951 and some ten years later, in October 1961, a third son, Ma hias, completed the family. Upon his election as mayor of West Berlin in October 1957, Willy Brandt gained national and international recognition as a perspicacious and resolute leader in the face of East–West crises. In November 1958 he vehemently rejected the Soviet initiative to transform Berlin into a demilitarized ‘free city’ and rallied the protesters against the construction of the Berlin Wall in August 1961. Brandt exerted increasing influence over the political orientation and reformation of his party, away from Marxist influence on economic policy and towards the SPD’s wholehearted support for NATO. Brandt was elected chairman of the SPD in February 1964 and held that position for twenty-three years. He was the social democratic candidate for the West German chancellorship in 1961 and again in the 1965 elections. Both times he achieved respectable results but lost to the candidates of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Konrad Adenauer and Ludwig Erhard. Following a governmental crisis and the collapse of Erhard’s government, in December 1966 Brandt became West German foreign minister and vice chancellor in a grand coalition government headed by Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger (CDU).The three-year term as foreign minister was Brandt’s opportunity to acquire governmental experience and to put his political ideas to the test, notably the new approach to Eastern policy he had been developing since the 1950s. The Bundestag elections of September 1969 gave Brandt the opportunity to form a social-liberal coalition with the Free Democratic Party (FDP) and to become West Germany’s first social democratic chancellor, holding a slight majority over the CDU/CSU opposition. The first years of his chancellorship were characterized by the implementation and success of his new Ostpolitik, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in December 1971. Despite international acclaim, Brandt’s revolutionary policy of seeking dialogue and even close contact with the leaders of the Cold War enemy provoked fierce domestic controversies.5 The opposition accused Brandt of betraying vital German interests by recognizing the postwar loss of German territories to Poland and Czechoslovakia, of prolonging the division of Germany by recognizing East Germany as a state and of extending Soviet influence over Western Europe through friendly interaction. In May 1972, the CDU/CSU a empted to oust Brandt and elect a new chancellor but failed in the Bundestag by two votes. The subsequent election of a new parliament resulted in a safe majority for the socialliberal coalition. In 1972–74, Ostpolitik had ceased to dominate Brandt’s political activities. Domestic ma ers, the first enlargement of the European Community (on 1 January 1973), the collapse of the international

Introduction | 5

monetary system and the Arab–Israeli War of October 1973 rose to the top of the political agenda. A er a staff member of his inner circle was exposed as an East German spy, Brandt relinquished the chancellorship in May 1974 but remained politically active as chairman of the SPD (until 1987) and as president of the Socialist International (1976–92). Following his separation from Rut Brandt in 1979, Willy Brandt moved in with his new partner, the historian Brigi e Seebacher. They se led in Unkel near Bonn, married in 1983 and stayed together until Willy’s death. In international politics, Brandt earned recognition as the chairman of the independent ‘North-South Commission’, which was founded in September 1977 with a view to developing solutions to the conflict between the rich countries of the industrialized North and the poor countries of the developing South. Moreover, Brandt remained active behind the scenes during the rapid transformation of East–West relations in the late 1980s and lived to see the fall of the Berlin Wall, in November 1989. Chancellor Helmut Kohl (CDU) invited Brandt as a guest of honour to the celebration of German unity on 3 October 1990 in recognition of his contributions to overcoming the division of Germany. Willy Brandt died on 8 October 1992 in Unkel, at the age of seventy-eight and was buried in Berlin. One man – and indeed European politicians were almost exclusively male in Brandt’s time – may have a limited influence on the evolution of his country and its foreign relations.6 And yet, during the Cold War, individual political leaders played particularly significant roles, as their abilities or inabilities to explore alternatives to war under critical circumstances o en implied far-reaching consequences for their countries.7 Depending on the stages of his career, Brandt was also part of larger networks, notably the party structure of the SPD, the political leadership in West Berlin, the West German government with its administration and the Western frameworks of NATO and the European Community. Loyal and close collaborators accompanied Brandt on his political journey; for example, Heinrich Albertz, Egon Bahr, Klaus Schütz and Dietrich Spangenberg in Berlin; Egon Bahr, Horst Ehmke, Katharina Focke, Klaus Harpprecht and Thea Wernicke in Bonn; and Peter Glotz, Klaus Lindenberg, Rita Lintz and Klaus-Henning Rosen a er Brandt’s chancellorship, to name but a few. But for the development of Ostpolitik and its conceptual elements, which is of primary importance here, in addition to Willy Brandt only the name of Egon Bahr stands out.8 With a background in journalism, Bahr became Brandt’s spokesman in 1960 and quickly rose to become his adviser on foreign policy. On instruction from his boss, Bahr dra ed the key memoranda, official declarations and many important speeches on Ostpolitik and in the early 1970s acted as Brandt’s main negotiator in the contacts

6 | Reconciliation Road

with Eastern leaders. Thus, for present purposes, the political thoughts of Willy Brandt will be at the centre and special a ention will be paid to the role of Egon Bahr. This book is primarily a work of history and uses style and methodologies from historical research. Adopting a chronological approach, it retraces the conception, implementation and development of Brandt’s Ostpolitik from the mid-1950s until the early 1990s. While an abundance of historical publications analyse the years of Brandt’s chancellorship, reviews of his Ostpolitik over longer periods are rarer – in German language and even more so in English.9 For a conclusive analysis of Ostpolitik, it seems beneficial to cover a longer research period than just Brandt’s chancellorship. A er all, the seeds of some important elements of his later Ostpolitik were sown in the 1950s and 1960s and explicitly designed as a long-term approach with anticipated results stretching beyond his own years in office.10 Furthermore, Ostpolitik evolved over time and adapted to international developments, with Brandt’s political constraints changing apace with his functions. Arguably, the viewpoint of reconciliation is applicable to analysing the longer term evolution of Brandt’s Ostpolitik from coexistence to the projection of reconciliation and the implementation of a new conciliatory policy, encompassing a transitory relapse to coexistence before the radical transformation of the East–West conflict at the end of the Cold War. Hence, in addition to the historical approach, the book introduces theoretical notions of reconciliation from peace and conflict studies to add a new layer of interpretation to the scholarly analyses of Ostpolitik. Ideally, the book is thus intended to contribute fresh theoretical elements to historical research and to provide a concrete example of reconciliation policy for the field of peace and conflict studies, which tends to emphasize theory-driven and normative research on reconciliation. Practical studies of reconciliation are decidedly fewer in number and rarely stretch back farther than the 1990s.11 Since the book applies theoretical thinking from the relatively new academic field of peace and conflict studies to an atypical context, the Cold War, my analytical approach is at the risk of satisfying neither camp, historians or peace researchers, but at the same time offers the promise of innovation. The main argument of the book is that West German Ostpolitik as proposed by Willy Brandt was a policy of reconciliation. This argument includes two elements. First, from Brandt’s viewpoint reconciliation was an integral part and driving force of the entire endeavour of Ostpolitik and not just a subsidiary aspect emerging from time to time. Second, from the academic viewpoint Brandt’s understanding of Ostpolitik and the practical policy he initiated were in several ways consistent with today’s scholarly approaches to reconciliation. The analysis will show that

Introduction | 7

Brandt habitually, and at important junctures in his political career, used the term ‘reconciliation’, including those years when he held governmental positions (1966–74). The objective of reconciling East and West was a long-term a empt to overcome the division of Europe, and in this sense Brandt perceived reconciliation as a means to transcend the Cold War. To avoid any misunderstanding, it is important to stress that Brandt did not seek a convergence of the Eastern and Western political systems. Rather, he firmly advocated the values of Western, pluralistic democracies based on the ideal of individual freedom and considered the Eastern and Western systems to be ‘irreconcilable’.12 Brandt was acutely aware of the inherent contradiction between his projection of a common, pan-European future and his acknowledgement that communist13 ideology and Western-style democracy were fundamentally incompatible. Indeed, the whole project of Ostpolitik was fraught with contradictions and ambivalence. Brandt endeavoured to come to terms with Germany’s Nazi past but did so through contacts with authoritarian regimes. He formally recognized East Germany and at the same time aimed to prepare for German unification, anticipating that the East German State would ultimately collapse. According to Brandt’s policy declarations, Ostpolitik could only be successful with West Germany firmly anchored within the Atlantic Alliance, yet his office dra ed plans for the longer-term dissolution of NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Ambivalence even extended to Willy Brandt’s character, according to what Lars Brandt wrote about his father: ‘If all contradictions were removed from this man, not much would have been le of him.’14 Against this background, I argue that theoretical precepts of reconciliation offer a suitable tool for the analysis of Brandt’s Ostpolitik and its ambivalences. Following Andrew Schaap’s book Political Reconciliation, which serves as a theoretical guideline here, launching a reconciliation process actually presupposes the ability of a political actor to hold together the seemingly contradictory and irreconcilable.15 Along the same line of thought, initiating a reconciliation process assumes no consensus between the opponents as regards political values and this applies to Brandt’s approach when launching Ostpolitik. Likewise, if analysed from a reconciliation viewpoint, recognition appears as an obstacle to reconciliation and at the same time as an indispensable condition towards this end. In other words, the road to reconciliation is fraught with tensions and contradictions, just like Brandt’s Ostpolitik. Bahr’s programmatic plans for the dissolution of the military alliances provoked public consternation in the early 1970s and even today continue to generate heated debates among the academic community. While some scholars argue that the replacement of the Warsaw Pact and NATO through a new European security system was an integral part of Ostpolitik, others maintain that

8 | Reconciliation Road

Brandt did not in the least consider abandoning NATO.16 The argument proposed and developed in this book is that Brandt took a keen interest in this issue yet remained ambivalent about it for most of his career. At times he actively explored the possibility of a new European security system and at other times he merely wished to keep this option open for the future. But he never pursued the creation of a European security system single-mindedly to its logical conclusion. From the reconciliation viewpoint, Bahr’s long-term plans involving the abolition of the military blocs were significant even though they remained unrealized. They exemplified the aspiration not only to improve East–West relations but, de facto, to eventually abolish the Iron Curtain. The idea of replacing the military alliances with a pan-European security system manifested the objective of institutionalizing a European ‘we’, encompassing both East and West. To put the topic into perspective, reconciliation was only one aim of Ostpolitik. According to Brandt’s explanations he pursued three closely related objectives. (1) Overcoming the East–West division of Europe in the long term by establishing as many contacts as possible across the Iron Curtain. (2) Taking responsibility for the German Nazi past and ‘footing the bill for Hitler’17 in order to open the way towards reconciliation with the peoples of Eastern Europe. (3) Preparing the unification of the two parts of Germany in an atmosphere of willingness and co-operation by generating a new relationship between Eastern and Western Europe. These three elements were inextricably linked, as illustrated by Brandt’s statement that ‘the division of Germany is the result of Hitlerism and a corollary to the conflict between East and West’.18 Hence the objective of reconciliation depended on the transformation of East–West relations and the discovery of a (non-threatening) solution to the division of Germany. Therefore, the analysis needs to include all three elements and their conceptual development by Brandt and his office. The fact that the pursuit of German unity served as political motivation and domestic legitimization of Ostpolitik in no way detracts from the objective of reconciliation. Without linkage to national interests it might be difficult if not impossible to sustain a policy of reconciliation over a long time period. The vast majority of scholars consider Brandt’s policy successful and beneficial for Germany and the political developments in Europe, while a small minority of academics hold that the role of Ostpolitik is overrated and amounted merely to accepting the status quo in Europe and ‘assuaging domestic political pressure’ in West Germany.19 This book favours the majority opinion. Ostpolitik did not achieve all its short-term objectives, but in the long run it contributed in several ways to opening the road towards reconciliation. Recent academic discussions on Willy Brandt have raised a wide range of topics, such as his relations with Latin America

Introduction | 9

as an elder statesman, his role in the European integration process, his significance for social policy in Germany and the evolution of how Brandt was perceived in different countries, to mention only a few examples.20 Academic analyses of his policy from the viewpoint of reconciliation are rare indeed, considering that various people tend to associate Brandt with reconciliation. For example, German President Christian Wulff stated in 2010 that he perceived Brandt as a ‘man of the power of freedom but first and foremost of reconciliation’.21 Only one specific initiative in Willy Brandt’s political career has been perceived as an act of reconciliation by the entire academic community and has received much a ention; his personal decision to kneel down at the Warsaw Ghe o memorial during his official state visit to Poland in December 1970. At the time, the photo of the kneeling chancellor modified the international perception of the Germans and the gesture contributed decisively to opening the road towards Polish–German reconciliation. Since then the photo has become a popular illustration in academic publications on state apology, which demonstrates the lasting symbolic power of the gesture.22 In contrast to less positively received state apologies in the 1990s, for example that by the Australian government to the aboriginal population, Brandt’s Kniefall (falling to his knees) of 1970 is widely described as sincere and well-timed. The literature comparing in particular how the German and Japanese governments dealt with past war crimes uses Brandt’s gesture as a model for sincere contrition.23 Defending a minority opinion, Jennifer Lind holds that for Japan it would be counterproductive to follow Brandt’s German example, due to stark differences in the domestic and international context.24 The analysis presented here supports Lind’s call for caution, in the sense that the symbolic power of the Kniefall was related to Brandt’s personal history as an anti-Nazi activist and the (hostile) political conditions in which he performed the act; and, importantly, that it was an expression of a distinctively German culture of dealing with the past that had gradually evolved since the end of the Second World War and embodied influences from Christianity. In the overall context of this book, Brandt’s reconciliation policy included, but was not confined to, an apology for Nazi crimes, as symbolized by the Kniefall. Against this background, it seems appropriate to give more weight to reconciliation in academic analyses of Ostpolitik by writing a book on the topic. The sources used for this book include archival documents, published primary sources, memoirs, academic literature and a small number of interviews with contemporary witnesses. Among the archival sources, the personal papers of Willy Brandt and Egon Bahr stored at the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Bonn were the most fruitful for present purposes. The

10 | Reconciliation Road

archival collections of the Auswärtiges Amt (the German Foreign Ministry) in Berlin, the CDU archives in Sankt Augustin, the FDP archives in Gummersbach and the German Federal Archives in Koblenz were consulted, likewise the personal papers of SPD personalities like Helmut Schmidt and Horst Ehmke. However, only very few sources found in the la er collections proved relevant for the context discussed here. To illustrate specific reactions to Brandt’s Ostpolitik and constraints imposed by the Western allies, the book quotes documents from governmental archives in the United States, France and the United Kingdom. A large number of sources pertinent to Brandt’s Ostpolitik have been published, notably in the ten-volume document collection Willy Brandt: Berliner Ausgabe, in Akten zur Auswärtigen Politik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (for the years 1966– 74) and Dokumente zur Deutschlandpolitik. Brandt also published numerous books and articles during his lifetime. From the array of academic analyses of Ostpolitik, the publications by Wolfgang Schmidt, Go fried Niedhart and Lily Gardner Feldman deserve special mention here. Schmidt’s work (in German) covers the entire period of Brandt’s thoughts on Ostpolitik from 1948 until 1992, describes many of the aspects discussed in this book and concludes that Brandt’s contributions to reconciliation ranked among his foremost achievements – however without delving into the question as to what exactly reconciliation entails. Niedhart’s publications (in English and German) focus especially on the years from 1966 to 1974 and emphasize the beneficial effect of Ostpolitik for European peace, albeit without focusing on reconciliation. Feldman, a political scientist, is among the very few scholars who have characterized Brandt’s entire Ostpolitik as a reconciliation policy. Her work contains wide-ranging historical accounts of West German reconciliation efforts at various levels and notably by non-governmental actors but also includes detail about Brandt’s reconciliation policy as chancellor.25 This book uses endnotes largely to indicate the sources consulted and only rarely to give additional information. The text is meant to stand alone without the endnotes and also to be accessible to non-historians. While the focus is on Ostpolitik, reconciliation and Willy Brandt, selected historical events and developments are summarized to illustrate the context. Due to the relatively long period covered by the book, the selection of historical background information inevitably remains limited. The following chapters trace the inception and implementation of Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik in chronological order, with reconciliation remaining the main focus of analysis. Chapter 1 addresses the notion of reconciliation from scholarly perspectives and here the work by Andrew Schaap serves as a theoretical guideline. Schaap posits that reconciliation begins when opponents come together to address the past and envisage the possibility

Introduction | 11

of a future ‘we’. He further stresses that the outcome of reconciliation processes is inherently unpredictable and depends on creative and unceasing negotiation, with a future horizon that is constantly evolving. Moving towards a more pragmatic point of reference, the classic distinction by peace researcher John Paul Lederach is introduced to exemplify the contributions to reconciliation by different levels of society; the role of top leaders particularly in launching a new process, the creation of networks and institutionalized contacts at middle-range levels and the embrace of reconciliation by the people at the grassroots level, which in the long term o en proves decisive. All three levels of society came to play their roles at different stages of Brandt’s Ostpolitik. Moreover, David Crocker’s useful distinction between ‘thin’ (simple coexistence) and ‘thick’ reconciliation is presented, alongside its practical and more detailed adaptation by Oliver Ramsbotham, Tom Woodhouse and Hugh Miall. They propose different stages of reconciliation and temporal progression, from ending violence to overcoming polarization and celebrating difference. Chapter 2 addresses Brandt’s promotion of East–West coexistence, starting in 1955, and follows the inception of his future Ostpolitik while he was mayor of West Berlin (1957–66). Likening the East–West conflict to the European wars between Catholics and Protestants in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Brandt advocated peaceful coexistence as a guiding principle to avoid a major conflict between the two camps and their irreconcilable ideologies. He understood coexistence not as entailing political neutrality but as a constant struggle between East and West that ‘involved everything except the big war’.26 Brandt’s embrace of coexistence was influenced by contemporary debates, yet he continued to promote the concept even a er the late 1950s, when it had lost much of its international appeal. Many scholars describe coexistence as the first step towards reconciliation, in the sense that opponents become aware of their mutual interest in avoiding war and ensuring common survival. At the same time, coexistence focuses primarily on security and avoidance of armed conflict and therefore tends to ignore the divisive issues that reconciliation aims to transform. The analysis shows that Brandt’s policy did not stop at the passive indifference of coexistence but evolved towards an active engagement with the East. A er the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, the first concrete measure of his Ostpolitik was to support contacts at the grassroots level and to organize meetings for families divided by the Wall. In parallel, Brandt and his close aid, Egon Bahr, started to build up a secret network of contacts with Soviet diplomats at the middle-range level. Chapter 3 covers the period from December 1966 until October 1969, when Brandt was West German foreign minister and addresses the emerg-

12 | Reconciliation Road

ing German culture of coming to terms with the past. Much in line with French and US observations, Brandt now perceived Soviet policy as being less aggressive and no longer threatening Western Europe. This international evolution enabled Brandt to move away from a policy dominated by security concerns towards a more ambitious approach of co-operation with the East. He publicly declared that ‘what we want is the reconciliation of the European peoples and thus also true peace with the Soviet Union’.27 But in a context of deep-seated Cold War hostility, where West Germany and the United States figured as the Eastern countries’ foremost enemies, the communist leaders did not allow Brandt’s efforts to go very far. His practical achievements as foreign minister were confined to establishing diplomatic relations and launching economic co-operation with Romania and Yugoslavia, both countries on the periphery of the Eastern camp. From the viewpoint of political philosophy, Brandt’s visits to Bucharest and Belgrade exemplified his a empt to rehumanize the demonized other and to project the possibility of a future ‘we’ in the sense of ‘we Europeans’. In addition to envisaging a common future for Eastern and Western Europe he also addressed the German Nazi past and – in accordance with the appeal by the philosopher Karl Jaspers – accepted the political consequences of the deeds commi ed by the Hitler regime. In parallel, during the 1960s, West German society (finally) engaged in a wide-ranging debate on the Nazi era and thereby opened the way for a policy of public apology and atonement, which Brandt as West German chancellor was about to initiate. The first part of his chancellorship and the official launch of a new West German Ostpolitik are the topic of Chapter 4, which includes Brandt’s formal recognition of East Germany and of Europe’s postwar borders. The period from October 1969 until late 1971 was also the zenith of his career as a politician, characterized by his groundbreaking summit meetings with Soviet, Polish and East German leaders. Given that reconciliation processes ought to involve all levels of society, the analysis outlines the roles played by top leaders and the significance of high-profile summits in launching a new policy of reconciliation. In abstract terms, the summits represented the creation of a political space where antagonists came together to address their common past and to discuss the possibility of a common future. Following extensive negotiations at lower levels, at the summits the former enemies agreed on the principles that would frame their future interaction. Notably, these principles found expression in the Treaty of Moscow (August 1970) and the Treaty of Warsaw (December 1970). These treaties officially drew a line under the long-standing hostility between West Germany and the Eastern camp and articulated their understanding on controversial border issues. Brandt’s chief negotiator of the Treaty of

Introduction | 13

Moscow, Egon Bahr, explained to the Soviet prime minister in the preparatory phase that the treaty was, beyond the formal aspects, an a empt to prepare reconciliation. According to Brandt’s plans, the Treaty of Warsaw was likewise meant to become the starting point of a German–Polish reconciliation process that would involve all levels of society. He pursued the same goal with Czechoslovakia but achieved only modest and belated results with the signing of the Treaty of Prague. East Germany, even though not a victim of Nazi aggression, nevertheless played a crucial role in the overall objective of East–West reconciliation. Brandt’s two summit meetings with the East German prime minister seemed initially to produce few results but eventually led to consistent negotiations on lower levels, the creation of a common infrastructure and eventually to a treaty facilitating East–West encounters at the grassroots level. Chapter 5 stretches until the end of Brandt’s chancellorship in May 1974 and focuses on the objective of Ostpolitik to set in motion reconciliation at lower levels by generating and institutionalizing East–West networks at the middle-range and grassroots levels, both bilaterally and multilaterally. Not the top leaders but the negotiators behind the scenes took the lead in these activities, which yielded results that proved significant in the longer term. Nevertheless, the dynamics of West German Ostpolitik began to lose momentum in 1972 and did not develop entirely as Brandt had hoped. The turn of events demonstrated the risk and unpredictability inherent in reconciliation processes as the initial action depends on the reactions of others and therefore cannot predetermine future developments. Bilateral negotiations between West Germany and the Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria and East Germany involved varying types of co-operation and progressed at differing speeds. Overall, these bilateral arrangements produced an increase in trade and travel across the Iron Curtain, the la er o en limited to Western travellers visiting the East. At the multilateral level Brandt’s government aimed to create pan-European structures in order to overcome the East–West division of Europe in the long-term. Ostpolitik accomplished pivotal groundwork for the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE), which started in November 1972 and culminated in the Helsinki Final Act of August 1975. The CSCE framework was indeed pan-European but failed to incorporate negotiations on military security and disarmament, which was a major flaw from Brandt’s perspective. At the same time, it became clear that the idea of overcoming the military division of Europe met with unequivocal rejection from Brandt’s Western partners and proved anathema as long as the Cold War persisted. Chapter 6 deals with Brandt’s a empts as an elder statesman to pass on the legacy of Ostpolitik and to mend East–West fences, until the ending

14 | Reconciliation Road

of the Cold War. The late 1970s and early 1980s saw a revival of Cold War confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States and temporarily turned the clocks back to the objective of coexistence. Once again security considerations and the imperative to avoid a major armed conflict dominated the European agendas, including Brandt’s. Paradoxically, in a changed environment, his efforts to keep the promises of Ostpolitik now created tensions with human rights movements in the East, which Brandt’s policy had been instrumental in bringing about. These tensions became most apparent in relations with the very country with which he most fervently continued to promote reconciliation, Poland. The question of how to preserve the founding act and original spirit of a reconciliation policy is indeed a common dilemma among promoters of reconciliation in the second generation. More influential than Brandt’s actions in the 1980s were the long-term effects of his original Ostpolitik. The fundamental political reforms introduced by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev seemed like an indirect corollary to Brandt’s earlier endeavour to encourage the gradual transformation of the East through constant contact and dialogue. The end of the Cold War likewise manifested analogies with Brandt’s expectation that the Eastern system would eventually fall as part of an ‘historical process’ but not as a result of external, military pressure.28 At the time of Brandt’s death in October 1992, reconciliation between (a now united) Germany and the Eastern European peoples was far from complete. But in a changed and favourable international environment the new generation of reconciliation campaigns could build on the foundations laid by Brandt’s Ostpolitik.

Notes 1. G. S öllgen, Willy Brandt: Die Biographie (Muni : Ullstein, 2003), 13. 2. Entries of 30 January and 11 March 1933, official online biography, h ps://www.willybrandt-biography.com/t/1933-1939/ (last accessed 30 March 2020). 3. Ø. Stenersen, I. Libæk and A. Sveen, The Nobel Peace Prize: Laureates 1901–2016 (Oslo: The Norwegian Nobel Institute, 2018), 278–79. 4. The variety of biographies includes H. Miard-Delacroix, Willy Brandt: Life of a Statesman (London: Tauris Academic Studies, 2016). H.J. Noa , Willy Brandt: ein Leben, ein Jahrhundert (Berlin: Rowohlt, 2013). E. Lorenz, Willy Brandt: Deuts er – Europäer – Weltbürger (Stu gart: Kohlhammer, 2012). H. Grebing, Willy Brandt: der andere Deuts e (Muni : Fink, 2008). B. Seeba er, Willy Brandt (Muni : Piper, 2006). S öllgen, Willy Brandt. P. Merseburger, Willy Brandt 1913–1992: Visionär und Realist (Stu gart: Deuts e Verlags-Anstalt, 2002). C. Stern, Willy Brandt (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 2002). B. Marshall, Willy Brandt: A Political Biography (Houndmills: Macmillan, 1997).

Introduction | 15

5. On the personal level, during his career Brandt was spurned for being an illegitimate child, an emigrant who had fled Nazi Germany, an exile who had worn a foreign (Norwegian) uniform, a womanizer and a weak individual who drank too much. 6. On feminist approaches to international politics, see L.J. Shepherd, Gender Ma ers in Global Politics: A Feminist Introduction to International Relations (London: Routledge, 2010). 7. For more detail, see D. Reynolds, Summits: Six Meetings that Shaped the Twentieth Century (London: Penguin, 2008). 8. On Bahr’s role for Brandt’s Ostpolitik, see A. Vogtmeier, Egon Bahr und die deuts e Frage: Zur Entwi lung der sozialdemokratis en Ost- und Deuts landpolitik vom Kriegsende bis zur Vereinigung (Bonn: Dietz, 1996). G. Niedhart, ‘Transformation through Communication and the Quest for Peaceful Change’, Journal of Cold War Studies 18(3) (2016), 14–59. 9. Influential books include T. Garton Ash, In Europe’s Name: Germany and the Divided Continent (London: Vintage, 1994). P. Bender, Die ‘Neue Ostpolitik’ und ihre Folgen: Vom Mauerbau bis zur Vereinigung (Muni : Deuts er Tas enbu Verlag, 1996) (first published 1986). 10. W. S midt, Kalter Krieg, Koexistenz und kleine S ri e: Willy Brandt und die Deuts landpolitik 1948-1963 (Wiesbaden: Westdeuts er Verlag, 2001). P. Speicher, The Berlin Origins of Brandt’s Ostpolitik, 1957–1966 (University of Cambridge: unpublished PhD thesis, 2001). 11. For more detail and further references, see O. Ramsbotham, T. Woodhouse and H. Miall, Contemporary Conflict Resolution: The Prevention, Management and Transformation of Deadly Conflicts (Cambridge: Polity, 2016). 12. Brandt speech at SIPRI, Stockholm, 18 September 1987, in H. Grebing, G. Schöllgen and H.A. Winkler (eds), Willy Brandt: Berliner Ausgabe (Bonn: Dietz, 2009), 10: 323. 13. In the absence of valid alternatives to the terms ‘communist’ and ‘communism’, the book follows Brandt’s vocabulary in this respect. 14. L. Brandt, Andenken (Muni : Hanser, 2006), 21. 15. A. Schaap, Political Reconciliation (London: Routledge, 2005), 92. 16. See for example the positions defended by Georges-Henri Soutou on the one hand and Andreas Wilkens on the other. G.H. Soutou, La guerre de Cinquante Ans: Les relations Est–Ouest 1943–1990 (Paris: Fayard, 2001). A. Wilkens, ‘New Ostpolitik and European Integration: Concept and Policies in the Brandt Era’, in N.P. Ludlow (ed.), European Integration and the Cold War: Ostpolitik – Westpolitik, 1965-1973 (London: Routledge, 2007), 67–80. 17. W. Brandt, Friedenspolitik in Europa (Frankfurt: Fis er, 1968), 19. 18. Brandt spee , SPD party congress in Cologne, 27 May 1962, in W. Brandt, Auf der Zinne der Partei: Parteitagsreden 1960 bis 1983 (Berlin: Dietz, 1984), 63. 19. M. Kramer, ‘Editor’s Note’, Journal of Cold War Studies 18(3) (2016), 2 (quote). For a recent debate on the issue and further references, see G. Fujii (ed.), H-Diplo Forum on ‘CSCE, the German Question, and the Eastern Bloc’, 1 June 2017, h p://tiny.cc/AR701 (last accessed 30 March 2020). 20. B. Rother and K. Larres (eds), Willy Brandt and International Relations: Europe, the USA, and Latin America, 1974–1992 (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018). A. Wilkens (ed.), Wir sind auf dem ri tigen Weg: Willy Brandt und die europäis e Einigung (Bonn: Dietz, 2010). B. Rother (ed.), Willy Brandt: Neue Fragen, Neue Erkenntnisse (Bonn: Dietz, 2011). 21. Wulff spee in Warsaw, 7 December 2010, in J. Andry owicz, K. Konarek, B. Sendhardt and A. Traczyk (eds), Europa Kontinent der Versöhnung? 40 Jahre na dem Besu Willy Brandts in Wars au (Warsaw: Friedri -Ebert-Sti ung, 2012), 6.

16 | Reconciliation Road

22. For example, the photo is used as the front cover illustration of G. Negash, Apologia Politica: States and Their Apologies by Proxy (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2006); and J. Lind, Sorry States: Apologies in International Politics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008). 23. G.D. Dodds, ‘Governmental Apologies and Political Reconciliation: Promise and Pitfalls’, in B. Charbonneau and G. Parent (eds), Peacebuilding, Memory and Reconciliation: Bridging Top-Down and Bo om-Up Approaches (London: Routledge, 2012), 133, 143. Y. He, The Search for Reconciliation: Sino-Japanese and German-Polish Relations since World War II (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 78. S.E. Heo, Reconciling Enemy States in Europe and Asia (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2012), 85–86. 24. Lind, Sorry States, viii, 179–83. J. Lind, ‘The Perils of Apology: What Japan Shouldn’t Learn from Germany’, Foreign Affairs 88(3) (2009), 132–46. Cf. L.G. Feldman, Germany’s Foreign Policy of Reconciliation: From Enmity to Amity (Lanham: Rowman & Li lefield, 2012), 334–44. 25. See especially W. S midt, ‘Willy Brandts Ost- und Deuts landpolitik’, in B. Rother (ed.), Willy Brandts Außenpolitik (Wiesbaden: Springer, 2014), 161–257. Schmidt, Kalter Krieg. G. Niedhart, ‘“The Transformation of the Other Side”: Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik and the Liberal Peace Concept’, in F. Bozo, N.P. Ludlow and M.P. Rey (eds), Visions of the End of the Cold War in Europe, 1945-1990 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2012), 149–62. Feldman, Policy of Reconciliation. 26. Brandt radio spee , ‘Wo uns der S uh drü t’, Berliner Rundfunk, 12 December 1960, box 108, A3, Willy-Brandt-Ar iv im Ar iv der sozialen Demokratie, Friedri -EbertSti ung, Bonn (WBA). 27. Brandt speech to the Bundestag, plenary session 05/180, 20 June 1968, 9,702, h p:// dipbt.bundestag.de/doc/btp/05/05180.pdf (last accessed 30 March 2020). 28. Brandt statement to the US Congress, 29 September 1983, Berliner Ausgabe 10: 171 (quote).

Chapter 1

ROADS TO RECONCILIATION

( We are charged to unearth the truth about our dark past; to lay the ghosts of that past so that they will not return to haunt us. —Desmond Tutu, 19961

The practice of reconciliation is as old as human history and all world religions refer to it in their own way. In Christianity, which influenced the cultural background relevant here, reconciliation and forgiveness are closely related. According to their doctrine, the Christian God is a God of grace who forgives even the most ghastly sin, based on the notion that no person is beyond redemption.2 The Christian approach to reconciliation was also prominent in the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), whose work in the late 1990s a racted global interest and played a pivotal role in pu ing reconciliation on the agenda of academic research. The formidable task of the TRC was to address and publicly expose a history of innumerable killings, cases of torture and other atrocities perpetrated during South Africa’s former apartheid regime, and to grant amnesty to persons making a full disclosure of all facts related to politically motivated deeds.3 The Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, chosen by South African President Nelson Mandela to chair the TRC, organized the core activities of the Commission as public hearings in a distinctly spiritual atmosphere. Prayers, hymns and ritual candle-lighting opened the meetings and set the stage for those who came to recount the atrocities they had suffered or themselves commi ed. These testimonies were broadcast live on radio and television and followed nation-wide. The ‘voiceless and anonymous could now emerge from the shadow’ and for a moment occupy centre stage, as Tutu put it. He deemed it crucial that the ‘beast of our dark past’ be looked in the eye and that the horrors experienced by the Notes for this chapter begin on page 28.

18 | Reconciliation Road

victims be acknowledged as a vital part of their identity. At the same time, the TRC encouraged the victims to forgive when a culprit admi ed guilt and offered an apology. Thus, the act of forgiveness was a ritual part of the hearings.4 Tutu maintained that the apartheid crimes had dehumanized both victims and oppressors, in the sense that the perpetrators were dehumanized by inflicting suffering on others. He argued that black and white were bound together by their common history and could only rehumanize and free themselves together. Consonant with these thoughts, an essential element of the TRC hearings was to present the perpetrators as human beings. The victim recognising the humanity in the perpetrator thus represented the starting point for reconciliation. Tutu was acutely aware that the next stages of reconciliation imperatively required the transformation of societal inequalities. A er the end of his three-year mandate, he stated bluntly that unless the black population gained access to decent education, good jobs and a safe environment, there would be no reconciliation in South Africa.5 In hindsight, these important aspects of societal transformation were largely neglected and the South African reconciliation process remains unfinished. Nevertheless, the work of the TRC and parallel discussions in Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe and Asia, where societies have confronted their violent pasts, clearly demonstrate the political and societal value of reconciliation. Accordingly, since the 1990s scholars interested in peace and conflict studies have produced a diverse body of literature on reconciliation and brought to light its various facets. One line of discussion has addressed the relationship between justice and reconciliation. Can it be right that a person who commi ed atrocities is not prosecuted under criminal law but walks away freely because of an apology and confession? In other words, is reconciliation achieved at the cost of justice being done? While some authors insist on the contradiction between reconciliation, which aims at good relations in the future, and the punitive measures of (retributive) justice, others see them as complementary or pointing towards the elements of restorative justice inherent in reconciliation.6 Another controversy focused on the link between reconciliation and forgiveness. For example, Lily Gardner Feldman views their association critically and contends that forgiving connotes forge ing.7 Taking a different perspective, Linda Radzik and Colleen Murphy maintain that an improvement in relations, which still leaves resentment, may not qualify as reconciliation a er all and that in some cases forgiveness is necessary for reconciliation. Jeffrie Murphy cautions against the risks of hasty forgiveness, yet sympathizes with acts of forgiveness when values of genuine importance are not compromised in the process.8 A related issue is the question of who has the right to forgive. Is it possible

Roads to Reconciliation | 19

to forgive on behalf of deceased victims? Can states forgive? And finally, a question particularly relevant to the Nazi crimes, as Hannah Arendt emphasized: are there unforgivable actions, and unforgivable actors?9 In this context, Willy Brandt assumed a somewhat incongruous role. On the one hand, as a German statesman he represented the perpetrators and symbolically asked the victims of Nazi Germany for forgiveness. On the other hand, he had been an anti-Nazi activist since his youth and bore no personal guilt. Did he become a figure of atonement specifically because he was not guilty? The background behind this paradox is addressed later in the book. The term ‘reconciliation’ has given rise to a variety of definitions and may take different meanings according to the context and the person using it. In everyday language, reconciliation is most o en applied in the sense of restoring friendly relations a er an argument or disagreement. For English and Romance languages the etymological origin of the term goes back to the Latin verb conciliare, meaning ‘to acquire’ or ‘to render favourably disposed’, and the Latin prefix re- meaning ‘back’ or ‘again’. As in the pivotal case of South Africa, where the term re-conciliation was applied though the black and white populations had never enjoyed good relations, today the English word is generally used with the prefix among academics and the general public.10 The German term for reconciliation is either Versöhnung or Aussöhnung, both rooted in the Middle High German word versüenen, which translates as ‘to se le a dispute between opponents’. In contrast to the English, the German expressions indicate no return to a previous condition and are linguistically affiliated to ‘expiation’ through the word stem Sühne. Originally, the German word Aussöhnung had a practical and political connotation while Versöhnung, by dint of its theological dimension, was perceived in a more spiritual and abstract way.11 Yet in modern German the two words are used interchangeably. Willy Brandt used both Versöhnung and Aussöhnung repeatedly and made no discernible difference between the two. Sometimes he also spoke about Aussöhnung im Innern (inner reconciliation), thereby referring to his goal of reconciling all German people, East and West German. In the academic literature, the substance of reconciliation remains debated and is influenced by the framework of analysis and the academic background of the author. In psychosocial or economic contexts, the term assumes highly specific meanings.12 Reconciliation in a political sense has received mixed scholarly a ention. Political science tends to have a stronger focus on competition between states or groups of people than on their co-operation. Moreover, since reconciliation is o en described as a normative concept and associated with sacrifice or apology, it seems to be

20 | Reconciliation Road

at odds with notions of power politics. Against this background, studies in international relations (IR) have produced relatively li le theoretical output on reconciliation.13 Likewise among historians, the term ‘reconciliation’ is used quite rarely. While many historical studies deal with transition periods a er a war or address the improvement of relations between states, most historians prefer to use less ambitious and less controversial notions such as coexistence, normalization or rapprochement. One topical exception is the European unification process, which was launched with the declared objective of reconciling the European peoples a er the Second World War. Arguably, the most persistent and conceptually most productive scholarly debates about reconciliation have emerged from the framework of peace and conflict studies. Rather a conglomerate of different academic approaches than a firmly established discipline of its own, peace and conflict studies bring together political scientists and sociologists, philosophers and political theorists, psychologists and legal experts, historians and quite a few practitioners working in the fields of conflict resolution or human rights. Despite the variety of contributors, since the 1990s a sustained inter-disciplinary exchange on the notion of reconciliation has taken place under the umbrella of peace and conflict studies. Brandt’s contemporaries only rarely described his Ostpolitik as a reconciliation policy, a notable exception being the Norwegian Nobel Commi ee at the prize ceremony in December 1971. In addition, some UK and US based journalists similarly perceived Brandt as ‘conciliator in divided Europe’.14 The historical-political literature and today’s media commonly characterize Ostpolitik as a policy of ‘rapprochement’, a er the famous slogan Wandel durch Annäherung (change through rapprochement) coined by Egon Bahr in 1963. In retrospect, Brandt expressed some reservations about this slogan because it created the mistaken impression of a West German rapprochement to the communist system.15 Another frequently used expression in the historical-political literature is ‘normalization’, in the sense that West Germany finally established official and normal contacts with Eastern Europe, thereby complying with the requests from their Western partners.16 Chancellor Brandt repeatedly referred to ‘normalizing’ relations when launching Ostpolitik but also emphasized that the term ‘normalization’ only partially expressed the purpose of his policy.17 In a broader East–West context, Brandt’s policy is described as a decisive element of ‘détente’, which is the French word for relaxation of tensions and is most o en applied to the Cold War context from the late 1960s to the mid-1970s. Détente refers to the easing of East–West hostility while the underlying antagonism remains.18 Thus, it is a ‘thinner’ concept than reconciliation, which will be developed here.

Roads to Reconciliation | 21

From ‘Us and Them’ to ‘We’ For the purposes of this book some particularly relevant academic studies on reconciliation are selected and applied to Ostpolitik. The academic practice of referring to other scholars’ arguments by name and of adhering to their concepts may be somewhat unusual in political history, but it is indeed a widespread practice in other disciplines, including peace research, political science, sociology or social history. In other words, if the objective is to develop a novel interpretation of Ostpolitik and to distinguish elements of reconciliation in Willy Brandt’s policy, a multidisciplinary approach and the inclusion of recently developed academic concepts seems vital. Andrew Schaap’s monograph Political Reconciliation serves as a theoretical point of reference here. One of the strengths of his study is the inclusion of the major theoretical approaches to reconciliation and his discussion of their respective merits and weaknesses with the ambition of developing a comprehensive theory. This framework is particularly useful in examining the initiation of reconciliation processes, which is of primary importance here. Schaap’s own views are greatly influenced by the work of the political philosopher Hannah Arendt whom he quotes frequently throughout his book. Interestingly, Willy Brandt also valued Arendt’s work and applauded her for ‘building bridges between nations and people’ through her writing.19 According to Schaap, a ‘world’ exists between those who share a common political space. This world is filled with created objects, which provide a physical environment, but it acquires meaning only through the dimension of human relationships. Thus, the commonness of the world is manifest solely when people come together and open a discourse on the political space they share. The plurality of views and the fact that the world appears differently to those who share it, make the outcome of the collective discourse uncertain. Even if the initiation of such a discourse among opponents is inherently unpredictable, the commonness of the world may be revealed only when people insert themselves into the shared space and take the risk of ‘beginning something new’.20 A community shared by the antagonists cannot be presupposed at this stage but may be projected as a future possibility. Hence, ‘political reconciliation begins with the invocation of a “we” that is not yet’.21 As Schaap emphasizes, no agreement on moral norms is needed to initiate a reconciliation process; the only requirement is the willingness of the antagonists to live together. Correspondingly, when opponents refer to events in their common past, they may radically disagree on the significance of these events; to initiate reconciliation they only need to acknowledge that they are talking about the same events.22

22 | Reconciliation Road

Once the process is initiated through the constitution of a space for politics, reconciliation necessarily includes both retrospective and prospective elements. Schaap argues that the memory of an offence and the collective reckoning with the past are actually linked with the anticipation of a ‘we’ and a possible future community in the sense that the projection of a shared horizon may enable former enemies to come to understand the past. In the gap between past and future, the present is experienced as a possible new beginning which is conditioned by an awareness of the frailty of the imagined ‘we’. Indeed, the uncertain outcome of an initiated reconciliation process is highlighted by political theorists in general, and in particular also by Andrew Schaap. He characterizes reconciliation as a creative process that emerges from an unceasing and restless negotiation, and which entails a future horizon that may be constantly changing.23 Thus, the outcome of reconciliation is inherently unpredictable, because it depends on the reaction of others. Nevertheless, political actors can decisively influence the process by means of their skilful performance and their ability to ‘find the right words at the right moment’.24 From the perspective of political theory, reconciliation is elusive not only because the new beginning may not come to pass and political interaction may instead confirm a relationship of enmity, but also because reconciliation is to some extent at odds with politics. While the nature of politics is linked to plurality and openness, reconciliation moves towards consensus and closure. Hence, whenever reconciliation reaches for a final se lement, it undercuts the conditions of plurality and thereby becomes anti-political. With reference to Chantal Mouffe, Schaap concludes that reconciliation is ‘a good that exists as good only as long as it cannot be reached’.25 Schaap’s theoretical analysis of reconciliation resonates with Willy Brandt’s practical orientation as a politician and with his fundamental a itude that future developments always remain unpredictable. Upon launching the Neue Ostpolitik in 1969–70, which qualifies as ‘beginning something new’ in Schaap’s sense, Brandt repeatedly stressed that his policy depended on the reactions by the Eastern side and that its outcome remained entirely uncertain. Even when subsequently pressured by his Western allies, who were puzzled by the incalculable elements of Ostpolitik, Brandt refused to predict the future of the process he started. As this book argues, his ‘policy of small steps’ was a pragmatic approach to be constructed from one step to the next, in which the later steps were not predetermined by the former. Even in late October 1989, when the situation in Eastern Europe was unravelling, Brandt declined to express any opinion on the future and preferred not to anticipate the unfolding of events.26 In my interview with Peter Brandt, he confirmed that his father, also as a result of his life experiences, had ‘internalized’ the notion that

Roads to Reconciliation | 23

things always turn out differently than expected, that projected developments are always altered by unforeseen events.27 Different elements of the theoretical background provided by Schaap are developed within the related chapters. In the late 1950s and early 1960s Willy Brandt did not yet talk about the reconciliation but about the ‘coexistence’ of East and West, which is a notion that Schaap analyses under the keyword ‘toleration’. An ethic of toleration appeals to reason and the common interest in peace in order to avoid war, and thus enables coexistence between enemies. This approach builds on the priority of security as an overarching good and endeavours to exclude divisive issues from the political discourse. Schaap acknowledges that such a limitation of politics may indeed produce beneficial results by opening up a common space, and that toleration may even be a necessary step. Yet he also warns against using the concept as a basis for political reconciliation, because toleration aims at avoiding conflict whereas reconciliation seeks to confront and transform conflict. In line with this thought, the ‘benign indifference’ inherent in toleration does not serve as a sufficient basis for coming to terms with past wrongs.28 Another major aspect of Brandt’s policy finds a theoretical analogy in Schaap’s discussion of ‘recognition’. In the early 1970s, the decision of Brandt’s government to formally recognize the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the borders of Poland, corresponded to the urgent demands of the Eastern side, but was highly controversial in West Germany. Notably, the recognition of the GDR as a state seemed to affirm the division of Germany, which Brandt wished to overcome eventually. According to Schaap’s analysis, a struggle for recognition is initially motivated by the a empts of each side to impose their own reality on the other. Through the ensuing dialogue and articulation of underlying assumptions, the antagonists may give up their imposing a itude and evolve towards understanding the other on his own terms. From a perspective of reconciliation, Schaap commends such dialectic processes of recognition for creating a shared horizon and for valuing the identity and form of life of the other. At the same time, he points out that policies of recognition incur the risk of being trapped in the binary distinction between self and other which reconciliation is supposed to overcome.29 In addition to Schaap’s normative and purely theoretical approach to political reconciliation, John Paul Lederach’s more empirically-driven work is used to conceptualize the levels of actors in reconciliation processes and to put Brandt’s role as a political leader into a societal context. Lederach is both a scholar and a practitioner who has been involved in reconciliation and peacebuilding activities as a nongovernmental actor in Latin America, Africa, Europe and Asia. While Lederach’s background is

24 | Reconciliation Road

different, his main insights into reconciliation processes do not contradict Schaap’s argument and in the points at issue here actually concur. Like Schaap, Lederach emphasizes that reconciliation is linked to the constitution of a shared social space where adversaries express concerns about the past and the future and engage in a process of building and transforming their relationships. Likewise, he advocates the projection of a common future without predetermining the outcome; rather, the future is to be constructed dynamically through an innovative process of redefining relationships.30 Lederach argues that all sectors of society have their roles to play for reconciliation processes to succeed. His ‘pyramid’ sketching out three levels of actors has gained widespread acceptance, in spite of some disagreements about where to draw the line between the three levels.31 At the top of the pyramid are the small number of highest-ranked leaders involved in a conflict. These leaders have a high public profile and visibility, which creates distinctive opportunities but also limits their range of action. Following Lederach’s analysis, publicity and profile both establish and maintain a leader’s base and legitimacy. The public profile may respond to a leader’s ambition to legitimately represent the constituency and at the same time to secure his or her position of influence. Constant media a ention exerts further pressure on top leaders to maintain a position of strength with regard to both their adversaries and constituencies. Accordingly, top leaders tend to be locked into positions, and, when meeting their opposite numbers, are unlikely to modify their a itude as their every move represents a high-stake decision. On the other hand, by virtue of their decision-making power and high visibility, top leaders may contribute decisively to reconciliation by initiating a process of socio-political transformation. For example, they can launch a reconciliation process by means of a high-profile summit with the leader of the opposite side. As negotiations progress, the role of top leaders may be to give public weight to results achieved on lower levels, and to keep developments in line with the bigger political picture.32 When applying these general observations to Brandt and especially to the first years of his chancellorship, his pivotal meetings with the Eastern leaders assume the role of icebreakers in order to set in motion a process of transition. Furthermore, as the governmental planning documents and Brandt’s personal papers show, he was aware from the outset that his own capacities as West German chancellor were limited and therefore focused on institutionalizing contacts at lower levels.33 Lederach maintains that middle-range leaders have a particularly relevant role in reconciliation due to their ability to develop sustained exchange and infrastructures of interdependence. Middle-range leaders

Roads to Reconciliation | 25

may be defined along different lines, yet they do have some key characteristics in common. Such actors usually have access to the top level, to networks behind the scenes and to the constituency of the top leader, and they o en benefit from pre-existing contacts with their counterparts. Perhaps most importantly, middle-range leaders do not depend on visibility or publicity, they rarely step into the limelight and typically meet in secret. Consequently, they can act more informally and flexibly when negotiating a consensus with the other side. They are not necessarily a ached to the political authority, but may also be respected as economic, religious or minority leaders. The network-oriented approach of the middle range further relates to the long-term perspective of reconciliation, as these processes most o en outlast a specific government or set of leaders.34 An important middle-range leader during Brandt’s chancellorship was Egon Bahr, who entertained a wide and mostly secret network with Eastern counterparts. Brandt himself also qualifies as a middle-range leader for long periods of his career, notably for the eighteen years when he used his prestige and connections to network behind the scenes as an elder statesman. In general terms, the build-up and maintenance of East–West networks in various sectors was an integral and central part of Brandt’s Ostpolitik. The mass of people at the grassroots level and their local leaders represent the third level in Lederach’s pyramid. The bigger dispute is o en mirrored in local communities, and the effects generated by the conflict are experienced most acutely by the people at the grassroots. Even if these people are not able to exert direct influence on the decisions of the top leaders, their sheer number can nevertheless apply constant pressure for change from below, which may ultimately lead to the end of a confrontation through the exhaustion of the higher-ranked authorities. Conversely, if a reconciliation process is not in some ways rooted in the grassroots level, it will hardly prove sustainable.35 With regard to the East–West conflict and the solution of the German Question, the grassroots level undoubtedly played an important role. The people of Eastern Europe (including the East Germans) did indeed play a crucial part in ending the Cold War, as their peaceful opposition and mass demonstrations in 1989 ultimately led to the collapse of their communist governments. The long-term effects of Brandt’s policy on local communities in the East remain difficult to measure. Yet there is a discernible correlation between his almost lifelong efforts to make the Iron Curtain permeable and an increase in East–West contacts even on the grassroots level. Quite tellingly, in 1963 Brandt’s first official negotiations with the Eastern authorities led to an agreement on travel permits, which allowed families divided by the Berlin Wall to spend the Christmas holidays together. In hindsight, this agreement qualifies as ‘the foundation stone’ of his later Ostpolitik.36

26 | Reconciliation Road

While several aspects described in the following chapters indicate some responsiveness of Eastern citizens to Brandt’s objective of reconciliation, no collective grassroots drive for East–West reconciliation manifested overtly as long as the Cold War antagonism prevailed.37 The invasion of Czechoslovakia by troops of the Warsaw Pact in August 1968 painfully demonstrated to Brandt and his Social Democratic Party, which had nurtured great sympathies for the reformist ‘Prague Spring’ movement, how brutally Moscow dealt with unwanted collective aspirations. Therea er, Brandt was particularly cautious in his support of Eastern grassroots movements that were not sanctioned by the Kremlin. To complement Schaap’s general theoretical framework and Lederach’s pyramid of societal actors contributing to reconciliation, a third concept distinguishing between ‘thin’ and ‘thick’ reconciliation is added to include temporal progression. When enemies lay down their arms and agree on ‘simple coexistence’ instead of killing each other, this corresponds, following David Crocker, to a ‘thin’ form of reconciliation. The next, thicker, type is reached with ‘democratic reciprocity’, when former antagonists respect each other as fellow citizens and engage in forging principled compromises with which all can live. Crocker associates the thickest form of reconciliation with a comprehensive reconstruction of social bonds, mutual healing and a shared vision of a common future.38 Given that Crocker’s original explanation of thin and thick reconciliation is fairly concise, it makes sense to include the more detailed description by Oliver Ramsbotham, Tom Woodhouse and Hugh Miall. They propose four different dimensions – or stages – of reconciliation, which in the following chapters serve as the bases for identifying the stages of reconciliation reached by Brandt’s Ostpolitik. The first stage corresponding to a thin version of reconciliation is ‘political closure and acceptance’ a er a conflict, in the sense that a return to violence has become unlikely. If divisive ma ers are still operative and the antagonist is perceived as an immediate threat, reconciliation processes may not develop. On the other hand, clear-cut defeat, as in Germany a er 1945, tends to favour reconciliation, because the defeated have no other choice than to accept their situation while the victors may feel magnanimous. Following the de-escalation ladder proposed by Ramsbotham and his co-authors, the second dimension of reconciliation is reached through ‘overcoming polarization’ and rehumanizing the other. The third stage, ‘reconciling conflicting demands’, includes the transformation of political and economic structures and the widespread belief that the situation will improve. ‘Celebrating difference’ is the fourth, thickest stage and refers to a relationship wherein former enemies not only tolerate but appreciate their differences. Ramsbotham and his colleagues associate formal apol-

Roads to Reconciliation | 27

ogy, atonement and forgiveness with this ideal and final dimension of reconciliation.39 The development from thin to thick reconciliation implies a temporal progression from one stage to the next. Notwithstanding, the final outcome or linear development of such processes cannot be taken for granted. Reconciliation may be halted or revoked; some stages may never be achieved. The question then, is whether Brandt pursued a thin or thick reconciliation with the former victims of Nazi aggression. Reconciliation efforts across the Iron Curtain were inevitably intertwined with and influenced by broader East–West developments. Until the mid-1960s and again in the early 1980s, contingent on Cold War tensions, Brandt’s activities aimed primarily at securing coexistence and preventing war in Europe, which qualifies as the thinnest stage of reconciliation. As West German foreign minister and as chancellor (1966–74), Brandt exerted himself to address past wrongs, to overcome polarization and to rehumanize the mutual perception of East–West enemies. This corresponds to the second stage of reconciliation. Originally, Brandt had declared that he wanted to actively stimulate ‘transformation on the other side’ through as many points of contact as possible; but by 1973 he conceded that political obstacles and the stern Eastern refusal to initiate reforms impeded the transformation of economic or political structures, which would correspond to the third stage of reconciliation.40 Hence, in practical terms Brandt’s policy as chancellor remained a relatively thin reconciliation, even though some of his actions anticipated thicker versions of reconciliation, notably his gesture of apology in Warsaw. The long-term objectives motivating Ostpolitik clearly aimed at thick reconciliation, as witnessed by Brandt’s aspiration to use the successful Franco–German reconciliation as a model for the future reconciliation with Poland. Since academic findings of peace and conflict studies are introduced here to analyse Ostpolitik, it may be significant that Brandt actually demonstrated a lively interest in this line of academic research. In his first governmental declaration as West German chancellor, in October 1969, Brandt announced the commitment of his government to support peace research with a view to finding ways to bring peace to the war-torn world. Practical arrangements honouring this commitment followed suit.41 Brandt repeatedly referred to academic findings resulting from peace research in his speeches, notably at the award ceremony of the Nobel Peace Prize in December 1971 and when addressing the UN General Assembly in September 1973.42 Even if these references suggest that Brandt kept abreast of broader progresses in peace research, it is likely that he developed his own reconciliation policy intuitively rather than intellectually. As mentioned earlier, academic research on reconciliation only gained

28 | Reconciliation Road

momentum by the mid-1990s. His remarkably acute intuition was perhaps one of Brandt’s most developed qualities as a leader. Coping with the (fierce) political opposition in West Germany proved to be more challenging for him. But at the time of the initial conception of Ostpolitik, which is analysed in the next chapter, this weakness did not yet become apparent.

Notes 1. Opening speech at the first hearing of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, quoted in D. Tutu, No Future without Forgiveness (London: Rider, 1999), 87. 2. See e.g. the second epistle to the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 5:19). In the New Testament, ‘reconciliation’ is used in several senses: reconciliation between individuals, reconciliation between peoples and reconciliation of people with God. For more detail, see F. Rognon, ‘Expiation, repentance, pardon et réconciliation: concepts religieux et valeurs des sociétés européennes contemporaines’, Les Cahiers Sirice no. 15 (2016), 20–23. 3. Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act 34 of 1995, adopted on 19 July 1995, Paragraph 3a, Statutes of the Republic of South Africa, h ps://www.justice.gov.za/legis lation/acts/1995-034.pdf (last accessed 30 March 2020). 4. Tutu, Forgiveness, 32–33, 71–91, 226 (87 and 91 for the quotes). Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa Report (Cape Town: Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 1999) 5: 1–4, h ps://www.justice.gov.za/trc/report/finalreport/Volume5.pdf (last accessed 30 March 2020). In total, the TRC addressed over 20,000 cases. 5. TRC Report 1: 17–18. TRC Report 5: 304–6, 349, 435. Tutu, Forgiveness, 34, 51, 126, 204, 220–22. 6. For discussions on justice and reconciliation, see A. Rigby, Justice and Reconciliation: A er the Violence (London: Lynne Rienner, 2001). N. Biggar, Burying the Past: Making Peace and Doing Justice a er Civil Conflict (Washington: Georgetown University Press, 2003). D. Philpo , Just and Unjust Peace: An Ethic of Political Reconciliation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012). 7. Feldman, Policy of Reconciliation, 3–6. 8. J.G. Murphy, Ge ing Even: Forgiveness and its Limits (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 115–16. L. Radzik and C. Murphy, ‘Reconciliation’, in E.N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2015 Edition), Section 3.8, h ps://plato.stan ford.edu/entries/reconciliation/ (last accessed 30 March 2020). 9. H. Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (Cleveland: Meridian, 1962), 459. 10. Heo, Reconciling, 105–6. See also E. Verdeja, Unchopping a Tree: Reconciliation in the A ermath of Political Violence (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2009), 16–18. 11. A. Hajnicz, Polens Wende und Deuts lands Vereinigung: Die Öffnung zur Normalität 1989– 1992 (Paderborn: S öningh, 1995), 146. For the meaning of reconciliation in other European languages, see C. Defrance, ‘La réconciliation après les conflits: un savoir-faire européen? Éléments d’introduction’, Les Cahiers Sirice no. 15 (2016), 5–14. 12. E. Skaar, S. Gloppen and A. Suhrke (eds), Roads to Reconciliation (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2005), 4–5. Ramsbotham et al., Conflict Resolution, 287. 13. See the discussion by Heo, Reconciling, 3–8.

Roads to Reconciliation | 29

14. Award speech by A. Lionæs, Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, Oslo, 10 December 1971, h ps:// www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1971/ceremony-speech/ (last accessed 30 March 2020). See the press collection of the Fondation Jean Monnet pour l’Europe, notably R. Dary, ‘Role of Conciliator in Divided Europe’, The Times, 30 June 1971, AMK 181/4/149, Fondation Jean Monnet pour l’Europe, Lausanne. 15. W. Brandt, My Life in Politics (London: Penguin, 1993), 63. 16. Historical reference books include H. Ha endorn, Coming of Age: German Foreign Policy since 1945 (Lanham: Rowman & Li lefield, 2006). W. Loth, Overcoming the Cold War: A History of Détente, 1950–1991 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002). E. Wolfrum, Die geglü te Demokratie: Ges i te der Bundesrepublik Deuts land von ihren Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart (Stu gart: Kle -Co a, 2006). 17. Plenary session 05/180, 20 June 1968, 9,702, h p://dipbt.bundestag.de/doc/btp/05/05180. pdf (last accessed 30 March 2020). Brandt memo on talks with Brezhnev in Oreanda, 17 September 1971, Berliner Ausgabe 6: 382. 18. On practical interpretations of détente by different people and governments, see T.A. Schwartz, ‘Legacies of Détente: A Three-Way Discussion’, Cold War History 8(4) (2008), 513–25. J.M. Hanhimäki, ‘Conservative Goals, Revolutionary Outcomes: The Paradox of Détente’, Cold War History 8(4) (2008), 503–12. 19. Telegram Brandt to Arendt (New York), 11 October 1966, box 122, A11.10, WBA. 20. Schaap, Political Reconciliation, 59–61, 64 (quote). 21. Ibid., 77. 22. Ibid., 84. 23. Ibid., 65–67, 75, 88–91. 24. H. Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 26 (quote). 25. Schaap, Political Reconciliation, 9, 77, 84 (quote), 149. The quote from C. Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox (London: Verso, 2000), 137, was originally applied not to reconciliation but to ‘perfect democracy’. 26. Brandt interview with Der Spiegel, 23 October 1989, Berliner Ausgabe 10: 383. 27. Author’s interview with Peter Brandt, on 3 December 2011 in Hagen. 28. Schaap, Political Reconciliation, 25–28, 35–39. 29. Ibid., 6, 41–47. 30. J.P. Lederach, Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies (Washington: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2010) (first published 1997), xvi–xvii, 26–31, 134–35. 31. B. Charbonneau and G. Parent, ‘Introduction: Peacebuilding, Healing, Reconciliation’, in Charbonneau and Parent, Peacebuilding, 3–12. Taking a more critical viewpoint, Thania Paffenholz acknowledged the enormous influence of Lederach’s theories on peacebuilding but pointed out flaws in their application, notably when focusing too exclusively on middle-out efforts. T. Paffenholz, ‘International Peacebuilding Goes Local: Analysing Lederach’s Conflict Transformation Theory and its Ambivalent Encounter with 20 Years of Practice’, Peacebuilding 2(1) (2014), 11–27. 32. Lederach, Building Peace, 38–43, 51. 33. Lederach’s pyramid was first applied to Brandt’s Ostpolitik by B. Schoenborn and G. Niedhart, ‘Erfurt and Kassel, 1970’, in K. Spohr and D. Reynolds (eds), Transcending the Cold War: Summits, Statecra , and the Dissolution of Bipolarity in Europe, 1970–1990 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 15–42. 34. Ledera , Building Peace, 41–42, 46, 81. 35. Ibid., 42–43, 51–55.

30 | Reconciliation Road

36. E. Bahr, ‘Ein Forts ri für die Mens en: Passiers ein-Regelung war Grundstein für die Ost-Politik’, 17 February 1987, Sozial-Demokratis er Pressedienst 1946–1995, h p:// library.fes.de/spdpd/1987/870217.pdf (last accessed 30 Mar 2020) (quote on page 5). 37. The ‘peace movements’ and the anti-nuclear campaigns of the early 1980s, which gained massive popular support in Western Europe and to a lesser extent also in East Germany, rather than calling for reconciliation aimed at preventing a nuclear war between East and West. 38. D.A. Crocker, ‘Reckoning with Past Wrongs: A Normative Framework’, Ethics & International Affairs 13(1) (1999), 60–61. Crocker’s concept was inspired by M. Walzer, Thick and Thin: Moral Argument at Home and Abroad (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994). 39. Ramsbotham et al., Conflict Resolution, 286–310. 40. W. Brandt, The Ordeal of Coexistence: The Gustav Pollak Lectures at Harvard University 1962 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963), 78 (quote). 41. Governmental declaration, 28 October 1969, Berliner Ausgabe 6: 238. Brandt speech to the Bundestag, plenary session 06/051, 8 May 1970, 2,565, h p://dipbt.bundestag.de/ doc/btp/06/06051.pdf (last accessed 30 March 2020). 42. Nobel lecture, ‘Peace Policy in Our Time’, 11 December 1971, section III, h ps://www .nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1971/brandt/lecture/ (last accessed 30 March 2020). This lecture referred to thoughts originally developed by J. Galtung, ‘An Editorial’, Journal of Peace Research 1(1) (1964), 1–4. Brandt speech, 26 September 1973, General Assembly of the United Nations, Berliner Ausgabe 6: 503–4.

Chapter 2

THE FIRST STEP – COEXISTENCE (1955–66)

( It is not the diversity of Opinions, (which cannot be avoided) but the refusal of Toleration to those that are of different Opinions, (which might have been granted) that has produced all the Bustles and Wars. —John Locke, 16851

Up against a Brick Wall Shortly a er 4 am on Sunday, 13 August 1961, a railway official knocked at the door of Willy Brandt’s sleeping compartment to convey an urgent message from Berlin: the Eastern authorities were making a radical move to seal off West Berlin. Brandt, then mayor of West Berlin and social democratic candidate for the West German Chancellery, le the train at the next stop in Hanover, cancelled his scheduled campaign speech in Kiel and caught an early morning flight to Berlin. Upon arrival at Tempelhof Airport, he drove immediately to the sector boundaries at the Potsdamer Platz and the Brandenburg Gate. On seeing the iron stakes and barbed wire barricade now separating the points between East and West Berlin, where half a million people used to cross on a daily basis, he was consumed with horror, bewilderment and ‘impotent fury’. The West Berliners grouped and watched the feverish work on the barricades with despair, while heavily armed East German troops stood guard. A number of East Berliners tried to escape and jumped from buildings on the sector boundary into rescue nets held by the Western fire brigade, but some of them missed the nets and crashed onto the pavement. The East German government had meticulously planned the operation code-named Great Wall of China and implemented the task with true German efficiency. While the BerlinNotes for this chapter begin on page 55.

32 | Reconciliation Road

FIGURE 2.1. Berlin, Zimmerstraße, 18 August 1961. The construction of the Wall imbued the political ideas Brandt had been developing since the 1950s with a new meaning and urgency. © Bundesregierung / Siegmann.

ers slept on this warm summer morning, forty-five kilometres of innercity boundaries had been barred up and the 160 kilometres of the ring surrounding West Berlin cordoned off; thirteen metro stations near the sector boundaries were now sealed, railway tracks were cut, roads torn open and blocked. Soviet troops took no part in the activities, but stood ready around the city.2 The Eastern move did not come as a complete surprise to Brandt. Since Nikita Khrushchev’s declaration of November 1958, when the Soviet leader had threatened to terminate Western access to West Berlin and to transfer the Soviet rights regarding Berlin to East Germany, the flow of refugees crossing the open border in Berlin had reached enormous proportions. On 12 August 1961 alone, about 2,500 East Germans had travelled through Berlin to se le in the West. The German Democratic Republic (GDR) was being bled dry of the best of its skilled workforce. Since May 1961, Washington had been sending clear signals to Moscow indicating that Western rights in West Berlin would be defended by all possible means, including war, yet Eastern measures affecting only East Berlin would be tolerated.

The First Step – Coexistence (1955–66) | 33

Informed of the impending plans by an East German spy, on 12 August Brandt had publicly warned against sacrificing the East German people ‘on the altar of indifference’ and le ing them be ‘incarcerated in a gigantic prison’.3 When the East did indeed put the operation into practice on 13 August, Brandt was shocked by its ruthlessness and also by the obvious indifference of the Western powers. Brandt’s entourage had never seen him as grim as on this day when he le the Allied Kommandatura, who was officially in charge of West Berlin but lacked any instructions from Washington, Paris or London. The US President Kennedy had gone sailing and did not comment on Berlin for an entire week, the British Prime Minister Macmillan continued to play golf in Scotland and the French President de Gaulle stayed in his country co age. As the despair mounted in Berlin, Brandt momentarily considered initiating a storm on the Wall, yet dismissed the risky notion because ‘war was lying on the streets’.4 In a speech to the Berlin Chamber of Deputies on the evening of 13 August, he gave vent to his outrage at the breach of the city’s four-power status and the blatant injustice perpetrated by the East German regime, yet called on the Berliners to show prudence and restraint. With an almost religious fervour he also promised never to forget the East German people, who were to suffer most from the Wall, and proclaimed that he would allow ‘the forces of darkness’ no ultimate triumph.5 Three days later he used even stronger Cold War language and compared the East German leader Walter Ulbricht to Adolf Hitler when addressing 350,000 angry Berliners in front of the city hall. In a defining moment of his career, Brandt found the right words to restrain and rally the agitated crowd. His passionate exclamation that ‘we are not afraid’, and his bold demand to President Kennedy to take ‘political action’, were eventually greeted with enthusiastic applause.6 Meanwhile, a er the Western alliance had shown no significant reaction for three days, Khrushchev gave the order to replace the temporary barricade with a solid wall. Strengthened with increasingly sophisticated fortifications, the Wall was to divide Berlin for twenty-eight years and three months. Those trying to escape over it were shot by the East German border troops. The events of mid-August 1961 had a marked effect on Brandt. In hindsight, he described the building of the Wall and the Western acquiescence to this as a ‘deep rupture’ in his political thinking, as a moment when he ‘lost certain illusions’ and when traditional pa erns of Western policy were exposed as ineffective and ‘downright unrealistic’.7 Throughout West Germany, the common belief that NATO would pursue an active policy towards German reunification suffered a heavy and decisive blow. Yet the manifold lessons of August 1961 took some time to sink in. In the

34 | Reconciliation Road

short run, and especially in summer and autumn of 1961, the new situation created a direct threat to West Berlin. Western reconnaissance reported a suspicious concentration of Eastern troops, and, as Brandt disclosed to his family, the Western administration of the city took secret measures to prepare for a possible military invasion by the forces of the Warsaw Pact. Such fears persisted until the peaceful resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962.8 The experience of these threats, which openly exposed the vulnerability of the Western position in Berlin, strengthened Brandt’s conviction that only the US was powerful enough to secure the freedom of West Berlin and West Germany against the very real Eastern threat. Accordingly, he aspired to ‘a maximum of Atlantic partnership’ during the following years.9 Brandt was indeed by origin, function and political conviction a man of the West, and the Berlin crisis clearly demonstrated how staunchly he defended Western values and democracy. At the same time, the construction of the Berlin Wall reinforced Brandt’s determination to cultivate contacts with the East in order ‘to reach an understanding’. The events following 13 August 1961 revealed that Washington lacked the means to remove the Wall, and no military or nuclear build-up by the West would be able to do so in the future. Summing up the lax a itude of the West, Kennedy quipped: ‘It’s not a very nice solution, but a wall is a hell of a lot be er than a war.’ Brandt concluded that the West Germans needed to develop their own political concepts and contacts with the East even without their allies’ support, instead of ‘relying solely on others to speak for us’; otherwise Germany would remain divided forever.10 This background vividly demonstrates that the beginning of Ostpolitik emerged from the specific situation in Berlin and was directly related to Brandt’s responsibilities as mayor. His immediate objective was to alleviate the effects of the complex crisis so concretely manifest in his city and eventually to find a solution acceptable to all Eastern and Western parties involved and all those affected. On this path, Brandt first addressed the dilemmas at hand: the issues related to the division of Germany (the ‘German Question’) and the officially non-existent relations between West and East Germany. In the 1960s, an important effect of the Wall was the slow but fundamental change in West German public opinion, which by the end of the decade had led to the endorsement of Brandt’s controversial Ostpolitik. The Wall contributed decisively to stabilizing East Germany and ended Western hopes of a collapse of the GDR resulting in German reunification. Quite tellingly, the foreign ministry in Bonn ceased to dra any operative reunification plans in 1960.11 The Wall also led to a growing public awareness of the futility of West Germany’s official policy of ignoring the GDR, and made it more obvious that many West Germans

The First Step – Coexistence (1955–66) | 35

continued to be concerned about the fate of their fellow Germans in the East. In this sense, the Wall served as a catalyst that ultimately rendered the long-term approach of Ostpolitik sustainable. With regard to Brandt himself, the Wall changed the frame of reference for his political action and imbued with new meaning and urgency the political thoughts he had developed on East–West coexistence since the mid-1950s.12 While these thoughts theoretically applied to East–West relations as a whole, Brandt was not yet a top-level leader and, consonant with his responsibilities, was primarily concerned with Berlin. Only a er gaining the West German Foreign Ministry in 1966 did he endeavour to apply his emerging Ostpolitik to the East in general and proclaim reconciliation as one of its core objectives.

No Coexistence, No Survival Before addressing coexistence in the Cold War context, it seems relevant to take a look at historical precedents – as Brandt also did when analysing the ideological confrontation between East and West. In European history, the notion of coexistence has o en been associated with the peaceful coexistence of different faiths. During the era of the crusades and recurring violence between Christians and Muslims, the catholic philosopher Peter Abelard (1079–1142) advanced the nonconformist view that those who act sincerely in the belief of obeying God’s will should not be discriminated against, even if they did not adhere to the Christian faith. The Rabbi Maimonides and the Islamic scholar Ibn Rushd (Latinized into Averroes) subsequently expressed analogous views and advocated a certain toleration between the three monotheistic religions. The peaceful coexistence of the Christian, Jewish and Muslim religions became a more prominently debated topic in the Age of Enlightenment and found its most famous expression in the play Nathan the Wise (1779) by Go hold Ephraim Lessing. Based on medieval literary models, Lessing developed the powerful parable of three brothers – representing Moses, Jesus and Mohammed – each of whom received from their father an apparently identical ring. As each was convinced that he had the one original ring with ‘the wondrous power to make its wearer loved by God and man’, the quarrelling brothers appealed to a judge. In the absence of objective truth, the judge dismissed the brothers and told them to reveal the power of their respective rings by acquiring the love of God and men through their deeds, over the next ‘thousand thousand years’. Thus, the parable promoted a lasting, peaceful coexistence of religions while sustaining a positive rivalry as to which religion would produce the most moral and harmonious results.13

36 | Reconciliation Road

The long-lasting and savage European wars resulting from the Reformation and Counter-Reformation made the coexistence of Catholics and Protestants a burning issue in the Europe of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. A particularly influential thinker on this question was the English philosopher and father of the liberal tradition, John Locke (1632– 1704). One of his main tenets was the division between the political and religious spheres, building on the protestant idea of individual religious conscience: ‘I ought to have liberty in my religious worship, because it is a thing betweene god and me’. The state authority, on the other hand, was fulfilling the role of ‘umpire between man & man’.14 Beyond his claim that freedom of conscience was every man’s natural right, Locke also asserted that any a empt by the state to impose a specific faith would be u erly useless; religious salvation could only be achieved through inner devoutness, not coercion. However, Locke’s aim was not to defend unconditional religious liberty, but to find ways to reconcile political rule with the religious realm of individual faith, which in his analysis eluded the logic of reason. He observed that freedom of conscience was a divisive notion with a tendency towards dogmatism and the rejection of difference: ‘For every Church is Orthodox to itself; to others, Erroneous or Heretical.’15 Locke concluded that in the public realm, the common good of peace and security was to serve as an objective and legitimate constraint for the enactment of the individual conscience. In other words, individual religious freedom should be tolerated, but only as long as it did not imperil the security of the community. According to this line of thought, the violence of the Reformation had been the result of the religious realm taking over the political, and the failure of state authorities to limit the implementation of faith through reason. To sum up, in a world where difference of opinion was inevitable, Locke advocated a policy of toleration as the reasonable means to deal with religious conflict. As he assumed that all governments and communities shared an interest in peace and political stability, the common good of security provided the basis for toleration and coexistence between enemies.16 At the height of Cold War tension in the early 1960s, Brandt drew a direct analogy between the ideological ba les fuelling the East–West conflict and the times when European Catholics and Protestants ‘waged religious ba les by means of wars’.17 Like earlier thinkers, he aspired to find a non-violent solution and, like Locke, Brandt designated the mutual interest in security as the common basis to curb East–West enmity. In 1962 he declared to an American audience that, with mankind facing the ‘peril of total self-annihilation’ through nuclear weapons, ‘coexistence is not a mere alternative, but our only chance for survival’. He further sought to

The First Step – Coexistence (1955–66) | 37

achieve a state of affairs in East–West relations whereby ideology would cease to play a dominant role, which correlates with Locke’s warning against the religious sphere gaining ascendency over the political. To some extent, similarities are also apparent between Brandt’s view on ideologies and Locke’s postulate that religious beliefs are personal, as Brandt emphasized the right of the Eastern people to decide on their own ideological system: ‘I do not believe that we have the right to coerce them into happiness as we conceive of it.’ At the same time, Locke’s claim that religious faith eludes reason did not translate into Brandt’s approach to communist ideology, which he considered entirely amenable to logical debate. Moreover, Brandt’s approach to coexistence may be likened to the positive rivalry advocated by Lessing’s parable of the rings, as the Mayor likewise insisted that ‘genuine coexistence does mean competition’. In his view, the values of Western democracy based on the ideals of freedom of the individual and a pluralistic society, would in peaceful competition unfold their inner force of a raction and eventually prevail over the monolithic and outmoded dogmatism of the communist front. He was convinced that coexistence was ‘a contest which Communism must lose’.18 Interestingly, Rut Brandt mentioned in her memoirs that in the 1950s the play Nathan the Wise aroused the interest of the Brandt family.19 Although Willy Brandt did not directly refer to Locke or Lessing, it was actually a great admirer of Locke, the British Nobel laureate Bertrand Russell, who in April 1955 inspired Brandt to embrace the concept of coexistence. Russell’s speech at an inter-parliamentary meeting and his conversations with Brandt in Rome decisively influenced the views of the rising German politician. The core idea advocated by Russell was that the leading powers of the nuclear age, despite all their fundamental disagreements and violent conflicts, had a common interest in preventing the world from blowing itself to smithereens. ‘I discovered this simple truth for the first time, and much too late, in the spring of 1955, in a discussion with Bertrand Russell’, Brandt commented a few years later.20 Starting in April 1955, the determined promotion of East–West coexistence became an integral part of his political tenets. He argued that the military technologies and development of nuclear weapons were escalating to a point where a major military confrontation ceased to represent a means for any kind of policy. A major war would no longer produce victors and vanquished, but universal destruction. Following Brandt’s argument, the challenge for political decision-makers was to adapt to the new military reality and to develop a novel set of policies appropriate to the nuclear age. As the fate of mankind hung in the balance, he declared the task urgent and that it was imperative to find ways to coexist peacefully. The deep-rooted antagonism between East and West would continue to

38 | Reconciliation Road

exist and generate manifold tensions, but the conflict would have to be addressed by other than military means.21 Brandt’s pronouncements on coexistence were inspired by a broader international debate and the contemporary political developments. Both in Moscow and Washington, the references to coexistence did not go beyond the acknowledgement that some kind of understanding with the Cold War enemy was indispensable in order to avoid a major war. Accordingly, security concerns ranked high on political agendas and neither Eastern nor Western leaders projected a ‘we’ in the sense of a community with a shared future, beyond the mere endeavour to prevent all-out war. In the Soviet Union, a er the death of Joseph Stalin in March 1953, a period of uncertainty ensued, and the emergence of a novel foreign policy seemed possible. While the new Soviet leaders such as Georgi Malenkov, Nikita Khrushchev, Lavrentii Beria and Vyacheslav Molotov quarrelled over who was to be Stalin’s successor, they agreed to alleviate the excessive repression of Stalin’s regime and endeavoured to expand their diplomatic room to manoeuvre on the international arena. As a result, the Soviet rhetoric changed noticeably in the mid-1950s. Stalin’s postulate of the inevitability of wars gave way to the advocacy of non-military competition between the communist and capitalist worlds. Khrushchev used the term ‘peaceful coexistence’ from September 1954 onward, and, upon emerging triumphant from the power struggle inside the Kremlin, proclaimed it as a tenet of Soviet foreign policy in February 1956. Khrushchev thereupon called on the leaders of the capitalist states to engage in peaceful competition: ‘Let us try out in practice whose system is be er, let us compete without war.’22 Yet his interpretation of peaceful coexistence as a policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries did not ring true to Western ears. A er Soviet tanks invaded Hungary in November 1956 and crushed the nationwide uprising and move towards democracy and neutrality, the hopes for a new dawn in European politics came to a tragic end; in West Berlin people protested with ‘no coexistence’ banners. From Western perspectives, Khrushchev’s threat to West Berlin in November 1958 was further proof that the Soviet Union had not renounced violence in international affairs despite the coexistence slogan. In fact, since the early days of the Russian Revolution under Lenin, the notion of peaceful coexistence and its violent counterpart, world revolution, had been repeatedly applied as two sides of the same coin.23 Thus, by the late 1950s, the term peaceful coexistence had lost much of its credibility. In contrast to other Western politicians and to public opinion in Berlin, Willy Brandt continued to cling to the concept of coexistence – even if the relative ‘thaw’ of the mid-1950s did not fulfil collective hopes for a transformation of the East–West conflict. The end of the Korean War in 1953, the

The First Step – Coexistence (1955–66) | 39

French withdrawal from Indochina in 1954 and the promotion of peaceful coexistence by India’s Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and other nonaligned countries (e.g. at the Bandung conference in 1955), hardly sufficed to dispel the Cold War polarization in Asia. Hostilities between factions supported by Washington and Moscow were soon to revive the broader antagonism with full force, notably in Laos and Vietnam.24 In Europe, the reunification and neutralization of Austria with the State Treaty of 1955 resolved the country’s status, but did not lead to any major breakthrough at the subsequent Four Power summit in Geneva. Quite to the contrary, the hostile bloc building intensified and led to the two parts of Germany being integrated into opposing military alliances. The rearmament of West Germany just a few years a er the Second World War was highly controversial, especially in France, but seemed indispensable to bundle together Western security interests against the Eastern threat. A er the (French) project of integrating German forces into a European Defence Community was spectacularly rejected by the French parliament in August 1954, NATO logically assumed the task of providing a framework for the rearmament and military protection of West Germany. Upon the FRG’s formal accession to the Western Alliance in May 1955, Moscow retaliated and created the Warsaw Pact. Shortly a er the formation of the West German Bundeswehr as part of NATO forces, in March 1956 the National People’s Army was founded in East Germany and fully integrated into the military structures of the Warsaw Pact.25 Unlike the SPD leader and his deputy, Erich Ollenhauer and Herbert Wehner, who feared that German reunification would be precluded, Brandt supported West Germany’s accession to NATO as inevitable and necessary to ensure the military security of the Federal Republic.26 Hence, Brandt endorsed Adenauer’s foremost policy objective of Westbindung, the firm anchoring of the Federal Republic within the Western structures, yet disapproved of the Chancellor’s exclusive focus on the West and failure to present any consistent Eastern policy. Brandt declared in 1958 that ‘German foreign policy has been standing on one leg since 1949’, the Western leg, and that the time had come to put down the other leg, named Ostpolitik, to explore what contacts might be pursued with the East.27 His intention was to pick up on Moscow’s useful formula of peaceful coexistence, to imbue the concept with new meaning and to transform it into a Western ‘policy of active, creative coexistence’ with the East.28 Brandt’s prospects of developing and implementing this kind of new Ostpolitik increased as his rise within the SPD gathered momentum. He had been representing Berlin in the Bundestag since 1949, and until 1954 had struggled to move up within the Berlin SPD, encountering misgivings as to whether a former emigrant was entirely eligible to evaluate the

40 | Reconciliation Road

German realities of the time. By January 1955, he had been elected president of West Berlin’s state parliament and during the following two years made a lasting impression on the electorate. Brandt’s firm but composed reaction to the Hungarian crisis in November 1956 contributed decisively to his image as a young, dynamic politician able to cope with global developments, to the detriment of his rival, Franz Neumann. In October 1957, at the age of forty-three, Brandt was elected mayor of Berlin, following the death of Mayor O o Suhr. In the divided city, the governing mayor (Regierender Bürgermeister) headed the government of the three Western sectors and was formally subordinated to the Presidents of the United States and France and the Queen of England. Against the background of Berlin becoming the hotspot of the Cold War, Brandt soon acquired celebrity status in the German media and, upon a world tour to promote the freedom of his city in early 1959, to some extent also captured international a ention. In parallel, the SPD moved towards a programmatic reorientation, abandoned its former slogan of non-alliance (Bündnislosigkeit) and by late 1960 had fully embraced West Germany’s NATO membership.29 Brandt’s previously dissenting voice thereby became the party’s official policy line and a majority of German social democrats perceived him as the most credible and promising proponent of the reformed SPD. In November 1960 he was nominated as the party’s candidate for the chancellorship in the 1961 elections. The popularity of the energetic SPD candidate had indeed surpassed that of octogenarian Chancellor Adenauer. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Brandt further developed his philosophy of coexistence and, a er the erection of the Berlin Wall, elaborated on coexistence to wider audiences: in October 1962 at Harvard University and in mid-July 1963 at the Evangelical Academy of Tutzing in Bavaria. His speeches now demonstrated the political ambition of advancing an alternative to the decidedly hesitant Eastern policy pursued by Bonn. It was no coincidence that Brandt first presented his dra concept for an overall policy of East–West coexistence on US territory, knowing full well that his approach was in line with President Kennedy’s views. Even though Kennedy avoided the loaded term ‘coexistence’, he did subscribe to the underlying assumptions and the imperative to coexist, as expressed, for example, in a speech to the UN General Assembly, in September 1961: ‘Together we shall save our planet, or together we shall perish in its flames. Save it we can – and save it we must’.30 Beyond the influence of Kennedy, in developing Ostpolitik Brandt also drew inspiration from German thinkers like the social scientist Fritz Sternberg who predicted a gradual transformation of the Soviet State due to the emergence from within of strong middle classes. Behind the scenes several advisors and associates contributed to Brandt’s early dra s of Ostpolitik, notably Klaus Schütz,

The First Step – Coexistence (1955–66) | 41

Heinrich Albertz and Egon Bahr, as well as the political scientist Richard Löwenthal and the journalist Harold Hurwitz. Later on, the role of Egon Bahr in elaborating conceptual blueprints for Brandt’s Ostpolitik became more pronounced.31 Brandt’s interpretation of coexistence featured three defining characteristics: (1) the notion of ‘active coexistence’; (2) the combination of coexistence and Germany’s national interest; and (3) the correlation between the Germans confronting their Nazi past and their capability to improve relations with the East. These three characteristics are now explained in more detail. First, the ‘active coexistence’ policy Brandt proposed in the early 1960s included important aspects of the Lockean concept of coexistence he had learned from Bertrand Russell, whilst also involving elements which transcended this conception. On the one hand and in line with the approach of Locke and Russell, Brandt’s primary goal was to find a modus vivendi as an alternative to killing each other. At the time of the Harvard lectures a development towards armed conflict could not be ruled out, and indeed almost materialized with the Cuban Missile Crisis two weeks later. The East–West conflict itself was ‘irreconcilable’ in Brandt’s reading, because of the ‘messianic mission’ of the Bolsheviks to dominate the whole world.32 On the other hand, and exceeding Locke’s concept of coexistence, Brandt also wished to go beyond a peaceful but indifferent existence side by side. He advocated a political strategy of ‘a permanent offensive’ by the West to engage the Eastern side in constant dialogue and proclaimed cultural, economic and scientific co-operation as the key fields of contact. He declared: We have to seek ways to surmount and to permeate the blocs of today. We need as many real points of contact and as much meaningful communication between them as possible … This is a program and a posture that can encourage transformation on the other side.33

Brandt’s idea was not to seek a compromise with the East, but to actively stimulate internal change within the Soviet Union and the Eastern European states, for example by supporting Polish efforts towards greater national independence through West German projects of economic co-operation.34 Brandt’s understanding of active coexistence also involved an intellectual struggle and contest with communist ideology. He encouraged German and American audiences ‘to a ack the inadequacy and fragility’ of the communist system and to engage in the decisive debate between the democratic and the totalitarian approaches dividing East and West rather than fearing communist ideas.35 Hence, his anti-communism contrasted sharply with that of US Senator Joseph McCarthy, whose aggressive per-

42 | Reconciliation Road

secution of any alleged interaction with the communist world decisively influenced the American public in the postwar period. For Brandt, communism was not some kind of contagious disease to be avoided at all costs, but a flawed ideology and political system whose deficiencies would become apparent through steady contact. In contrast to other Western leaders of the Cold War era, Brandt had been in direct contact with communist ideas since his youth and even as a teenager had started to challenge the lack of intellectual freedom within communist parties.36 His own life story may explain why he did not hesitate to engage in ideological debates with the Eastern camp, also during his career as a politician. Moreover, Brandt’s speeches in the 1950s and early 1960s expressed the conviction that Western political values were superior to those of the East and, more subtly, that in the long term intellectual strength and moral values would prove superior to military might (a conviction he had adopted from his mentor and former mayor of Berlin, Ernst Reuter). For the later development towards a policy of reconciliation, Brandt’s objective of ‘active coexistence’ and engagement with the East was crucial. It already contained the grounds for moving from the thinnest form of reconciliation, coexistence, to the next and thicker stage, involving the humanization of the demonized enemy through direct human contact. This transition from the first to the second stage of reconciliation is no foregone conclusion and may never come to pass, as passive and indifferent coexistence may even hamper the thickening of reconciliation. From a theoretical viewpoint, coexistence and mutual toleration restrain the conflict by appealing to reason and prioritizing the common interest in security (in the Cold War context, preventing nuclear war); irreconcilable views are subordinated to the overarching interest in avoiding war. Security becomes the basis for accepting interaction with the enemy and opens up a political space between antagonists, thereby providing a potential first step towards reconciliation. But, because toleration seeks to depoliticize and avoid irresolvable conflict, it also tends to prevent the further transformation of a relationship, which is nevertheless indispensable for reconciliation. Likewise, the reasonable appeal to security hardly provides any appropriate foundation for addressing the grim legacy of grave wrongs.37 In the early 1960s the antagonism of the Cold War still prevented any thickening of reconciliation beyond the thin stage of mere coexistence. Even though Brandt wished to initiate further developments, he realistically observed that the political options remained limited, not least because the Soviet interpretation of coexistence comprised coercion, blackmail, even conditions close to civil war, and thus ‘involved everything except the big war’.38

The First Step – Coexistence (1955–66) | 43

The second characteristic defining Brandt’s interpretation of coexistence was that he combined it with the German national interest. His motivation to improve relations with the East stemmed directly from his ambition to ultimately and indirectly facilitate the unification of Germany. He emphasized that he could ‘never be permanently reconciled to the Berlin Wall’, thus projecting a revisionist ambition for the future and rejecting a restrictive interpretation of coexistence. Since the German problem was inextricably embedded in the worldwide East–West conflict, he reasoned that the unification of the two parts of Germany could only be prepared for by breaking down the frozen fronts and by generating ‘a new relationship between East and West’. To this end, West Germany’s part was to forge new links with Moscow, the East German people and with the East in general.39 Several years before the Berlin Wall, in January 1958, Brandt had already concluded that the German Question ‘could not be solved without or even against Moscow’ and that peaceful coexistence was the only option for the Germans.40 Only direct contacts across the dividing line would be able to keep alive the sense of commonality and interconnection between East and West Germans, which Brandt considered the key element for the future ‘existence of our nation’. By contrast, with a loss of human contact, he feared that the East and West Germans would develop different conceptions and dri apart, and even if the global development should offer the Germans an opportunity to reunite, they would no longer be willing or able to do so.41 Brandt’s approach to the German Question a racted wider a ention in July 1963. Egon Bahr’s speech in Tutzing was intended to supplement Brandt’s address but, with Bahr’s distinctive style of using sharper and more controversial language, he provoked stronger reactions. He argued that the ‘zone’42 (the GDR) could only be transformed through consistent contact over the Berlin Wall and by improving the living conditions of the East Germans ‘in homeopathic doses’ small enough to avoid any danger of revolution and Soviet intervention. Rejecting the long held West German policy of undermining Ulbricht’s regime, Bahr contended that such efforts only strengthened the East German government and bolstered up the status quo instead of overcoming it. He concluded that German reunification would not originate from a single historical action, but from a long process of making the border permeable through many small steps of interaction with the East. Bahr summarized this policy with the formula Wandel durch Annäherung (change through rapprochement). Although Brandt later admi ed that he did not entirely approve of the expression, because it could be misread as a policy of adapting to the communist system, it eventually became the watchword of his Ostpolitik.43

44 | Reconciliation Road

To sum up, the long-term goal of uniting the two parts of Germany was an important motivation for Brandt to create coexistence (and later to pursue reconciliation) with the East. This objective also served as an incentive to the German public to support Brandt’s later Ostpolitik. The value of the greater goal, reconciliation, is in no way diminished by its association with German interests. Following the postulate that nations act according to interests rather than feelings, it seems reasonable to assume that reconciliation – while reaching well beyond self-interest – may become national policy only if combined with selfish motives. Conversely, if reconciliation does not coincide with the national interest, reconciliation may not be a sustainable policy in the long term.44 Finally, the third characteristic of Brandt’s approach to coexistence was that he associated the improvement of Eastern contacts with the requirement for the Germans to confront their Nazi past. In various speeches in the early 1960s he stressed that any West German endeavour to open up to the East would necessitate addressing the burdens of the past. He pointed to the ‘guilt we have loaded on us’ with regard to the Eastern European and Russian peoples in particular, and postulated that their distrust of the Germans could only be dissipated by fully acknowledging the past.45 Brandt emphasized that any kind of trust the Germans had gained since 1945 was only skin deep and fragile, and urged his fellow Germans to face the fact that the widespread suspicion against Germany was legitimate and a direct consequence of the Hitler era. In terms of international politics, he concluded that the Germans were bound to pursue a foreign policy of slowly dispelling the ingrained mistrust (in East and West). The total renunciation of nuclear weapons was a direct consequence of German history, following Brandt’s line of thought, and he unequivocally favoured ‘keeping the atomic club closed’ despite West Germany’s own lack of access to nuclear weapons.46 Regarding the crucially important domestic processes, he likened facing the darkness of the Nazi years to the ‘reconciliation of the German people with themselves and with their past’.47 He further asserted that while it would be fatal for the young generation to become embi ered by the deeds of their parents, even young Germans free of guilt could not ‘escape the history of their people’ and had to bear a part of this legacy. While he expressed appreciation for Chancellor Adenauer reacquiring personal trust in international politics, Brandt deplored the inadequacy of domestic grappling with the ‘painful truths’ of the Nazi era a er the Second World War. There had been ‘no German self-purification’, not enough political courage and too much opportunism, which he called the ‘cancer of our postwar policy’.48 The phenomenon described by Brandt had also been publicly discussed by Hannah Arendt from a philosophical point of view.

The First Step – Coexistence (1955–66) | 45

FIGURE 2.2. Krefeld, North-Rhine-Westphalia, 1961. During his election campaign for the West German chancellorship, Brandt (at the microphone) emphasized the need for the Germans to face their murky past. © Karl Heinz Lengwenings, distributed under a CC-BY-SA-4.0 licence.

She traced the origins of the German ‘incapacity to face the reality of the past’ back to the ‘inner emigration’ of many Germans during the Nazi years – the withdrawal from the unendurable reality of the world to a closed interior realm of thinking and feeling. As a result, the shared world that lies between people was lost and eventually led to the ‘profound awkwardness’ of the postwar Germans when dealing with the Nazi past.49 Logically, the initiation of reconciliation processes also suffers from any such incapacity to face the past. Brandt’s call for the Germans to reconcile with themselves and with their past corresponded to public appeals by other SPD officials in the early 1960s – notably by Adolf Arndt, a member of the party executive. At the time, the SPD endeavoured to demonstrate its competence in dealing with the Nazi past to German and international audiences, as a promising alternative to the reluctant government in Bonn. The resulting emphasis of the SPD leadership on inner reconciliation created temporary tensions with some of the younger party members who preferred to focus on justice and the legal persecution of former Nazis. By a twist of the Zeitgeist, Brandt’s publicly criticized past as an emigrant obstructed any inclination he may have had to personally a ack other

46 | Reconciliation Road

Germans for their Nazi past, even though he seemed naturally predisposed to reconciliation.50 Beyond the conceptual development of his approach to East–West coexistence in the early 1960s, Brandt also took the first practical steps to implement and test the policy that later became Ostpolitik. His efforts already aimed at creating East–West contacts on all three levels of the pyramid described by Lederach, but Brandt did not yet succeed in all respects and notably failed at the level of top leaders. Importantly, he had not yet become a top leader himself and thus lacked the authority (and political experience) to initiate a new policy exceeding his Berlin responsibilities. While he had acquired some international prestige as the mayor of West Berlin and was able to personally meet the Western decision-makers, these discussions did not take place on an equal footing and Brandt was usually on the receiving end.51 A er all, he was in no position to take any far-reaching decisions regarding East–West relations. Policy guidelines for the Eastern camp were determined in Moscow, and for the time being the United States acted as the sole leader of the Western alliance, even if France and the United Kingdom shared official responsibility for the German question and for Berlin. Hence important policy choices in that respect were not taken by the Germans. Within the limited range of West German foreign policy options, it was the dominating CDU/CSU party and Chancellor Adenauer who took decisions in Bonn, not the opposing SPD or even the mayor of Berlin. Against this background, Nikita Khrushchev’s initiatives to personally meet with Brandt failed rather spectacularly in March 1959 and again in January 1963. The first of these Soviet invitations came about a er Bruno Kreisky, the state secretary in the Austrian Foreign Office, had told Soviet officials that his friend Willy Brandt was not just ‘an official executing Western instructions’ but a man with his own political conviction ready to personally explain his views to all parties concerned, including Soviet leaders.52 On 9 March 1959, the Berlin mayor received a formal invitation to meet with Khrushchev in East Berlin the following morning. Brandt immediately consulted Bonn and the Berlin representatives of the three Western powers. While Adenauer and his foreign minister Heinrich von Brentano replied ambiguously and the British ambassador, Christopher Steel, gave Brandt a free hand, the US representative, Bernard Gufler, objected particularly vehemently. Gufler’s spontaneous disapproval was decisive, as the Berlin SPD was not ready to defy the US standpoint. Adding to the complexity of the situation, one day earlier Khrushchev had also arranged a meeting with the leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, Erich Ollenhauer. Whereas Brandt would have wanted to discuss practical Berlin ma ers with the Soviet leader, to strengthen East–West contacts, Ollen-

The First Step – Coexistence (1955–66) | 47

hauer promoted a very different and subsequently abandoned policy line of exploring the possibilities for unifying East and West Germany. (This may also illustrate that the Eastern policy Brandt developed in Berlin differed from the approaches of other SPD leaders.) Ollenhauer’s meeting with Khrushchev did indeed take place but nothing came of it. In this situation, Brandt declined the Soviet leader’s invitation.53 A very similar scenario was repeated in January 1963, albeit under different external circumstances. The Wall now divided Berlin, Ulbricht’s regime and the GDR were consolidated, and Brandt had lost the 1961 elections to Adenauer. Most of all, in October 1962 the Cuban Missile Crisis had brought the world to the brink of apocalypse and eventually manifested the superpowers’ resolve to avoid outright war with one another. This crucially important fact also pervaded the Soviet a itude towards Berlin. In late 1962, a er having made several harsh comments about Brandt, Khrushchev began to send out a series of more favourable signals seconded by Pyotr Abrassimov, the Soviet ambassador to the GDR. In public interviews, Brandt responded to the Soviet gesture and on 15 January he was invited to meet with Khrushchev in East Berlin. As he had done four years earlier, the mayor consulted Bonn and the three Western allies; again, they remained ambivalent, voicing concerns and partial support. As none of them actually objected, Brandt accepted Khrushchev’s invitation and the meeting was set for 17 January. The mayor’s personal notes and preparatory documents show that his primary objective was to confront the Soviet leader with the human suffering created by the Wall and to facilitate the border crossing for Berliners. However, just a few hours before the meeting, Brandt’s deputy mayor and coalition partner in Berlin, Franz Amrehn, announced that all CDU officials would leave the city government if Brandt were to meet with Khrushchev. Even though Brandt was not dependent on the CDU’s minority votes, he decided that he ‘could not meet the world’s second most powerful man’ against the background of a broken coalition. With bi er regret, he cancelled the meeting with Khrushchev, for the second time a er 1959. The regret became even more profound over time, not least because Abrassimov later told him that Khrushchev had ‘wanted to give something’ in January 1963.54 Initially agreeing to and then cancelling the meeting caused Brandt to lose some of his credibility in both Moscow and Washington as a leader of sound political judgement. Indeed, he had not prepared his ground well enough and had somewhat unnecessarily offended the Soviet leader.55 The political scenario described also illustrates the difficulties for a lower ranking official, such as Brandt at the time, to initiate a new policy. The aborted meeting with Khrushchev in January 1963 proved to be Brandt’s

48 | Reconciliation Road

last opportunity for personal dialogue with the top Soviet leadership in many years, actually until the end of the decade. Instead of top-level dialogue, middle-range discussions behind the scenes and especially connections on the grassroots level now played a more salient role for Brandt’s office. Bahr had met the second secretary of the Soviet embassy in East Berlin, Abrassimov’s aid Viktor Beletzki, in April 1962 and went on to arrange a series of secret consultations between January and May 1963.56 (Bahr expanded such middle-range contacts to a veritable web of secret East–West connections over the following ten years.) The two men discussed the possibility of pass agreements for the inner-Berlin border, which at the time was Brandt’s foremost political objective. He wanted to resuscitate contacts between East and West Berliners in order to alleviate the human suffering created by the Wall; at the same time keeping alive direct relations between individual East and West Germans was a key element in his ambition to sustain the hope of German unification. Brandt’s initial a empt to circumvent the East Germans through the secret Bahr-Beletzki channel did not have the desired result, and it became clear that a pass agreement could only be negotiated with the East German authorities, even at the risk of enhancing the GDR’s status in the process. On 17 December 1963 the civil service administrators of West Berlin and East Germany concluded a technical pass agreement between the two administrations (not between governments). This Passiers einabkommen became a huge success and launched Brandt’s policy of promoting East–West contacts at the grassroots level. Over the next two weeks 790,000 West Berliners went to visit their relatives and friends in the Eastern part of the city, and more than four million East Germans got into direct contact with the Western visitors. Eventually, new agreements restored the travel options for the Christmas holidays over the following years. Not only did the coveted visiting permits raise the morale of the Berliners, but the pass agreement also represented the first concrete step in Brandt’s ‘policy of small steps’. Bahr commented: ‘In a nutshell, the whole philosophy of Ostpolitik was tested with the travel permits.’57 In terms of international developments, the most ominous tensions between East and West and the specific threat to West Berlin gradually de-escalated a er the peaceful denouement of the Cuban Missile Crisis. On 16 January 1963, Khrushchev declared that the construction of the Berlin Wall had effectively satisfied his demands of November 1958. Kennedy’s visit to West Berlin in June 1963 and his famous speech ending with the words ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’ not only inspired the local citizens with hope and courage, but also issued an unconditional US security guarantee for West Berlin. This fact was not lost on Moscow. One year later, on 12 June 1964, the USSR signed a relatively modest Friendship Treaty with East

The First Step – Coexistence (1955–66) | 49

Germany – not the game-changing Peace Treaty Khrushchev had threatened in 1958. This Friendship Treaty signified the end of Soviet aggression against West Berlin and more generally the Kremlin’s acceptance of the status quo in Europe, as Willy Brandt (and also Charles de Gaulle) concluded.58 The Berlin Wall came to mark the limit of communist expansion in Europe and by the mid-1960s the overall East–West situation allowed for more ambitious plans and thicker forms of reconciliation than mere coexistence, although the hostile political propaganda and harsh mutual accusations continued. The urgency to prevent a nuclear war and Brandt’s prominent references to coexistence as the only chance for survival duly faded and gave way to practical ideas of co-operation with the East. In a memorandum ‘On relations to Eastern European states and peoples’, which he sent to US foreign minister Dean Rusk in August 1964, Brandt focused on potential contacts with Eastern European countries in the fields of trade, culture, science and transport, and even institutionalized youth exchanges across the Iron Curtain. Brandt wrote that the time was now at hand to develop conceptions of ‘restoring Europe in the long run’, the whole of Europe, even if he admi ed that the time was not yet ripe for any ambitious initiative to this end.59 The concept of coexistence was no longer mentioned. But it was only in late 1966 that Brandt began to talk about ‘reconciliation’ in an East–West context.

Western Reconciliation In the twenty years following the Second World War, West Germany engaged in a reconciliation process with Western countries that included not only the signing of co-operation treaties and the rehumanizing of former opponents, but also symbolic celebrations of reconciliation and the transformation of political, military and economic structures. All levels of West German society were included in this process, which had reached a relatively thick stage of reconciliation by the early 1960s (stage three on the scale described by Ramsbotham et al.). Given that in this period neither the German nor the other European societies made any far-reaching efforts to address the atrocities and sufferings of the past, such thick reconciliation seems somewhat astonishing. The Cold War antagonism hampered reconciliation processes between the blocs, but it certainly favoured reconciliation within the two political blocs. Hence the background of the Cold War plays a major role in explaining why Germany’s wartime enemies in the West came to treat the West Germans as partners surprisingly soon a er the end of hostilities. The transformation of US–West German relations

50 | Reconciliation Road

a er 1945 and the European unification process, based on Franco–German reconciliation, are not the focal point here but are now touched upon to complete the picture. For the United States, partnership with Germany was not the predetermined goal at the end of the Second World War. Washington had engaged in a particularly destructive bombing of German cities during the last phases of the war, and the early period of occupation with the Nuremberg trials, large-scale denazification and the dismantling of Germany’s industrial capability seemed to demonstrate that the punitive elements conceived by the late President Franklin D. Roosevelt (Democratic Party) would be implemented. Yet, parallel to the Republican Party gaining an absolute majority in Congress, in autumn 1946 Washington’s policy shi ed dramatically towards rehabilitating the German people and helping them ‘to win their way back to an honourable place among the free and peaceloving nations of the world’.60 What followed has been described by Charles Maier as a process of ‘structural reconciliation’ between the United States and West Germany. (By contrast, a dissenting minority opinion holds that the transformation of US–West German relations a er the Second World War should not be considered reconciliation but the result of occupation and armed coercion.61) Maier uses the term ‘structural reconciliation’ to indicate that neither the motivations nor the goals of US policy displayed any inclination (or indeed even any need) to reconcile with the Germans, but that the political conditions dictated the turn of events and their further evolution. The prospect of the impending Cold War urged Washington to harness the energy of the German people to fight against the spread of communism. To re-educate and bring democracy to the defeated Germans, and to empower them to achieve economic and political success, was a means to deter Soviet expansion and to ensure that Germany would not become a threat by causing instability in Europe.62 When the Soviet Union severed all Western ground access to Berlin in June 1948, Washington organized a fi een-month airli to feed the West Berliners and keep them from falling under communist rule. Thus, just a few years a er the capital of Nazi Germany had been subjugated, the United States embraced Berlin as an outpost of the Free World and a symbol of the common German–American purpose. West Berlin not only transformed into a showcase of Western superiority, but the sustained US presence in the city also served to guarantee Washington’s hold over a future se lement. In a broader sense, the positive performance in West Germany was to justify US policy and ultimately decide the outcome of the Cold War. From this perspective, Washington’s decision to support German democracy and to quickly integrate the West Germans as junior partners may be judged highly successful. However, as various historians

The First Step – Coexistence (1955–66) | 51

have emphasized, a major price to pay for this endeavour was the lack of any diligent confrontation of the Nazi crimes.63 For Willy Brandt, the first-hand experience of the Berlin airli was decisive in convincing him that the Western powers were ready to stand up for freedom and democracy. In hindsight he commented: ‘The cradle of reconciliation between the German people and the Western neighbours and the great nation beyond the Atlantic was in this city. In Berlin enemies have become friends.’64 A er the Berlin airli , Brandt’s previous doubts about the US commitment to the reconstruction of Europe vanished, and his critical comments on profit-orientated capitalism remained mere side notes. Henceforth, in his speeches he referred to the United States as the guarantor of freedom and democracy, and the mainstay of the future of Berlin and Germany. Given that until the end of the 1950s the SPD leadership disapproved of too close relations with the United States and of German NATO membership, cultivating good connections with Brandt and supporting his pro-American position was also in Washington’s interest. On his first tour through the US, in March 1954, despite his relatively modest rank, he was invited to meet with a series of high-level officials, including Vice-President Richard Nixon and Senator Lyndon B. Johnson. On another trip four years later, in January 1958, Mayor Brandt spoke more than fi y times to the US media and was received by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and three future US presidents – Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon. The personal closeness to Kennedy became one of Brandt’s mediatized assets upon the la er’s entry into the White House, in January 1961. The Berlin Mayor admired and to some extent idealized the young US president, despite their differences following the construction of the Wall. For the 1961 elections to the Bundestag, Brandt’s team consistently promoted the image of ‘the German Kennedy’ and campaigned with photos of the two politicians together. At the peak of Kennedy’s immense popularity in West Germany, in the summer of 1963, Brandt reasserted their personal bond and the ‘increasing identity of American and German interests’.65 Many West Germans shared this view. Indeed, by the 1960s the Federal Republic nourished a multitude of institutional links with the United States (not least through NATO), hosted almost 300,000 US troops on its territory, and had transformed into Europe’s most Americanized country. In the process, the close connection to the United States had become part of West Germany’s self-image. Beyond the security dimension, a key element in this symbiosis was the shared advocacy of European integration. The starting point and foundation of the European unification process was Franco-German co-operation and, eventually, reconciliation. A er 1945 the United Kingdom seemed to be predestined to take the lead in

52 | Reconciliation Road

reconstructing Europe, yet preferred that the supranational integration project should rest on the ‘partnership between France and Germany’ (Winston Churchill).66 The seminal events in this unification process were the Schuman Declaration of 9 May 1950 leading to the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in April 1951, and the signing of the Rome Treaties on 25 March 1957, establishing the European Economic Community (EEC) and the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom). The founding members of all three organizations were France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. To what extent the objective of reconciling wartime enemies was instrumental in launching European integration is open to debate. Eurosceptic explanations emphasize that the French co-operation with West Germany was not initially driven by federalist ambitions but by nationalist objectives to control German industry for the benefit of France, and that the general decline of Europe and the consistent US push for integration prompted the Western Europeans to unite. By contrast, Europeanists highlight the decisive impact of the war experience and argue that the primary motive for unification was to overcome the destructive antagonisms of the past and to create sustainable peace by integrating former enemies.67 As relevant as these debates are historically, from a reconciliation viewpoint it ma ers li le whether the European unification process started primarily for ethical or for selfish reasons. The different aspects may well be complementary. As mentioned, a policy of international reconciliation tends to be more successful and sustainable when its fulfilment corresponds to national interests. The critical point here is that the Western countries did not enforce a punitive peace on Germany and instead moved quickly towards the creation of a ‘we’ and a shared future, engaged in frequent contacts and manifold exchanges with the former enemy, and built common institutions where German views were taken increasingly into account. A significant aspect is the presence of reconciliatory elements in the public discourse of the founding fathers of European integration – like Jean Monnet, Robert Schuman, Konrad Adenauer, Paul-Henri Spaak or Alcide de Gasperi – and in official documents. For example, the Schuman Declaration refers to ‘the elimination of the age-old opposition of France and Germany’ and the ECSC treaty to a ‘deeper community among peoples long divided by bloody conflicts’. Broadly speaking, the continued references in the European discourse to ideas of peace, solidarity and reconciliation positively influenced the way in which political actors understood their task, and had an effect on public opinion.68 Another noteworthy element is the invitation to all European countries to join in the integration process, included in the treaties establishing the ECSC and the EEC. When

The First Step – Coexistence (1955–66) | 53

in the 1990s many Eastern European countries did indeed seek membership of the European Union, even though the task seemed Herculean, to some extent the Western governments were bound by their long-standing claim that the framework was open to all European countries.69 In the first postwar decade, the integration of the Federal Republic of Germany into the Western structures corresponded to urgent demands by the Western partners, but it soon became apparent that integration largely coincided with West German interests. From a political point of view, European unification was a means for the Germans to acquire an international role and status, to regain some influence and acceptance a er the tremendous suffering caused during the Nazi era. Co-operation and reconciliation with other Europeans were also moral imperatives. On emotional and social levels, the West Germans developed a stronger attachment to ‘Europe’ than any other population, as the Hitler regime had fundamentally discredited any notion of German nationalism for generations to come. For most West Germans, Europe replaced the Fatherland. Finally, the European Community provided an easily accessible market for the export-oriented German economy and thus a prospect for successful reconstruction, profitable trade and prosperity. On these grounds, all West German governments of the Cold War era and all six chancellors from Konrad Adenauer (CDU) to Ludwig Erhard (CDU), Kurt Georg Kiesinger (CDU), Willy Brandt (SPD), Helmut Schmidt (SPD) and Helmut Kohl (CDU), acted as spirited promoters of European unification. Brandt had favoured the idea of European integration since his Scandinavian exile. In 1940, he projected a scenario of ‘A United States of Europe’ and wrote that only ‘a solidarity-based European solution’ would provide the means to overcome nationalism and the security concerns on the continent. In July 1944, he estimated that ‘the hatred against everything German’ represented the main obstacle to building a new Europe, but that no pan-European solution would be possible without Germany; of crucial importance for the future developments would be an ‘understanding between France and Germany’, possibly also including Italy.70 Not surprisingly, a er the war Brandt became an active member of the Berlin section of the Union of European Federalists, welcomed the Schuman Plan and consistently supported the European unification process throughout the 1950s, even if this policy aspect occupied significantly less of his time than did his Berlin activities. In the early 1960s, Brandt advocated the enlargement of the Community and the inclusion of the United Kingdom, and called for a democratization of the overall framework by enhancing the control of the European Parliament over the Brussels bureaucracy. He also emphasized that the EEC had a higher purpose than merely serving as a bulwark against communism; instead, shared values and a common his-

54 | Reconciliation Road

tory represented the foundation of the Community. As he wrote in August 1964, he expected the ‘unification of free Europe’ to develop ‘a force of a raction’ that would spread beyond the Iron Curtain and eventually include the whole of Europe. This illustrates the linkage he perceived between his European policy and Ostpolitik.71 The Elysée Treaty of 22 January 1963, which sealed ‘the reconciliation of the German people and the French people’, later became the practical model for the reconciliation Brandt aimed to achieve with Eastern Europe and particularly with Poland.72 Considered novel at the time, the Franco-German treaty included all three levels of co-operation described by Lederach. (1) Joint policies and symbolic acts by the highest political leaders. (2) Development of networks on middle-range levels and institutionalization of the co-operation. (3) Continuing exchange at the grassroots level with a view to establishing friendship among the peoples.

The treaty also represented the result of manifold efforts to reconcile France and Germany ever since the end of the Second World War: the many initiatives by private citizens and local officials in both countries to expand the societal and cultural ties; the creation of the Franco-German Institute in Ludwigsburg and of various other organizations promoting youth and academic exchange; the large-scale twinning of German and French towns; and the institutionalized economic and political co-operation, not least within the ECSC and the EEC.73 Nevertheless, the Franco-German ‘we’ remained somewhat fragile and the formal act of signing the Elysée Treaty was not equivalent to reconciling all aspects of French and German societies or politics, as the significant and recurring disagreements between Paris and Bonn throughout the 1960s demonstrated. De Gaulle’s rejection in particular of the United Kingdom’s intention to join the EEC (in 1963 and again in 1967) and his open criticism of US policies, culminating in the French withdrawal from NATO’s integrated command structures in 1966–67, caused profound consternation and were perceived by most West Germans (including Brandt) as an ominous rupture of Western unity. Significantly for the further process of reconciliation, even in periods of pronounced antagonism, both German and French sides respected the procedures established by the Elysée Treaty, a ended the institutionalized meetings and discussed their differences face-to-face. Eventually, these Franco-German consultations became the driving force of European unification.74

The First Step – Coexistence (1955–66) | 55

To sum up this section, very soon a er the end of the Second World War the West created a ‘we’ of which the West Germans were an integral part, and institutionalized the project of a common, Western future. Yet, to a considerable extent, the Western ‘we’ was conceived of in opposition to ‘them’, the communists in the Eastern world. The constitution of a ‘we’ that included the East had become an arduous task in the process. For Brandt’s later Ostpolitik, reconciliation with the Eastern victims of Nazi aggression thus converged with the objective of transforming the Cold War antagonism in the sense of (not clearly defined) East–West reconciliation. The long-term goal of German reunification served as the domestic motivation to this end.

Notes 1. J. Locke, A Le er Concerning Toleration (Indianapolis: Hacke Publishing Company, 1983), 55. 2. W. Brandt, People and Politics: The Years 1960-1975 (London: Collins, 1978), 13–14, 16 (quote). E. Wolfrum, Die Mauer: Ges i te einer Teilung (Muni : Be , 2009), 11–13. 3. Brandt spee on the market place in Nuremberg, 12 August 1961, quoted in W. S midt, Kalter Krieg, 392. 4. The quote refers to Brandt’s retrospective account at a SPD meeting in Berlin, 2 December 1961, box 130, A3, WBA. 5. Berliner Ausgabe 3: 332. 6. Brandt speech at Rathaus Schöneberg, Berlin, 16 August 1961, h ps://www.willy-brandtbiografie.de/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Rede_Brandt_Mauerbau_1961.pdf (last accessed 30 March 2020). Merseburger, Willy Brandt, 400–1. 7. Brandt, People and Politics, 17, 20. 8. P. Brandt, Mit anderen Augen: Versu über den Politiker und Privatmann Willy Brandt (Bonn: Dietz, 2013), 110. 9. Le er Brandt to Kennedy, 7 February 1963, Berliner Ausgabe 3: 401. 10. Brandt, People and Politics, 20, 168 (Brandt quotes). K.P. O’Donnell and D.F Powers, ‘Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye’: Memories of John Fitzgerald Kennedy (Boston: Li le Brown, 1972), 303 (Kennedy quote). On 18 August 1961, Kennedy wrote to Brandt in the same sense: box 126, A6, WBA. 11. Boxes 19, 22 and 24, Bestand B12, Politis es Ar iv des Auswärtigen Amts (PA/AA), Berlin. See also K. Spohr, ‘German Unification: Between Official History, Academic Scholarship, and Political Memoirs’, The Historical Journal 43(3) (2000), 887. 12. A. Hofmann, The Emergence of Détente in Europe: Brandt, Kennedy and the Formation of Ostpolitik (London: Routledge, 2007), 39–42. Klaus Schütz and especially Egon Bahr, who became the main public witness of Ostpolitik a er Brandt’s death in 1992, repeatedly asserted that Ostpolitik was born on 13 August 1961. However, academic research shows that the development of Brandt’s political thoughts had started before. In this context it is noteworthy that Bahr became the spokesman of the West Berlin Senate – and Mayor Brandt’s speechwriter – only in 1960.

56 | Reconciliation Road

13. R. Forst, Toleration in Conflict: Past and Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 69–72, 84–87, 304–5. G.E. Lessing, Nathan the Wise, Act III, Scene 7. 14. J. Locke, ‘The First Dra : An Essay Concerning Toleration’, in J.R. Milton and P. Milton (eds), John Locke: An Essay Concerning Toleration and other Writings on Law and Politics 1667–1683 (Oxford: Clarendon, 2006), 303. 15. Locke, Concerning Toleration, 32. 16. Schaap, Political Reconciliation, 25–32. See also A.J. Pyle, Locke (Cambridge: Polity, 2013), 177–81, 189–91. Significantly, Locke perceived the Roman Catholics as a threat to political stability in England, because they obeyed a foreign prince (the Pope). 17. Brandt spee at the Evangelic Academy in Loccum, 6 July 1960, in W. Brandt, Der Wille zum Frieden: Perspektiven der Politik (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 1971), 61–64 (quote on page 63). 18. Brandt, Ordeal of Coexistence, 3–5, 41 (quotes); 25, 33–38. 19. R. Brandt, Freundesland: Erinnerungen (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 1992), 110. 20. On Brandt’s encounter with Russell, see W. S midt, ‘Die Wurzeln der Entspannung: Der konzeptionelle Ursprung der Ost- und Deuts landpolitik Willy Brandts in den fünfziger Jahren’, Vierteljahrshe e für Zeitges i te 51(4) (2003), 542, 555. Quote from Brandt’s spee at the Steuben-S urz-Gesells a in Berlin, 17 January 1958, cited in S midt, Kalter Krieg, 218. For Russell’s ideas at the time, see B. Russell, ‘The Choice is Ours: Coexistence or No Existence’, The Nation, 18 June 1955, in A.G. Bone (ed.), Man’s Peril, 1954–55: The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell (Volume 28) (London: Routledge, 2003), 290–96. 21. Brandt article, ‘Koexistenz: Hoffnung und Gefahr’, Telegraf, 19 April 1955, box 73, A3, WBA. Brandt spee (published version), ‘Was können wir zur Wiedervereinigung tun?’, union congress of the police, Remagen, 27 April 1955, box 73, A3, WBA. 22. N.S. Khrushchev, ‘On Peaceful Coexistence’, Foreign Affairs 38(1) (1959), 4 (quote). V.M. Zubok, Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007), 94–95. 23. W. Lerner, ‘The Historical Origins of the Soviet Doctrine of Peaceful Coexistence’, Law and Contemporary Problems 29(4) (1964), 865–70. S. Heimann, ‘Einleitung’, in Berliner Ausgabe 3: 46–47. 24. A. Best, J.M. Hanhimäki, J.A. Maiolo and K.E. Schulze, International History of the Twentieth Century and Beyond (London: Routledge, 2008), 319–22. N. Shimazu, ‘Diplomacy as Theatre: Staging the Bandung Conference of 1955’, Modern Asian Studies 48(1) (2014), 225–33. 25. M. Trachtenberg and C. Gehrz, ‘America, Europe, and German Rearmament, AugustSeptember 1950’, Journal of European Integration History 6(2) (2000), 9–11. W. Loth, Building Europe: A History of European Unification (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015), 36–52. 26. Brandt spee es of 24 April and 10 September 1954, quoted in S midt, Kalter Krieg, 164–66. 27. Brandt spee at the Steuben-S urz-Gesells a in Berlin, 17 January 1958, Berliner Ausgabe 3: 235. 28. Brandt speech at the party congress of the SPD Berlin, 22 May 1955, Berliner Ausgabe 3: 190. 29. For the reorientation of the SPD leadership in 1959–60, see D. Groh and P. Brandt, ‘Vaterlandslose Gesellen’: Sozialdemokratie und Nation 1860–1990 (Munich: Beck, 1992), 268–76. In sum, the intensifying Cold War had led to the prioritization of military security and a strong backing of Adenauer’s foreign policy by the West Germans. The SPD leadership also had to admit that it had failed to advance towards its foremost objective, German unification, or to provide any alternative to NATO membership.

The First Step – Coexistence (1955–66) | 57

30. Address before the General Assembly of the United Nations, 25 September 1961, John F. Kennedy Speeches, h ps://www.j library.org/learn/about-j /historic-speeches/ad dress-to-the-united-nations-general-assembly (last accessed 30 March 2020). See also Kennedy’s speech ‘A Strategy of Peace’ at the American University in Washington, DC, 10 June 1963, ibid. For the parallelism between Brandt’s and Kennedy’s concepts, see Hofmann, Emergence of Détente, 102–8. On Kennedy and the roots of détente, see J.M. Hanhimäki, The Rise and Fall of Détente: American Foreign Policy and the Transformation of the Cold War (Washington: Potomac Books, 2013), 1–24. 31. See the dra manuscripts for the lectures at Harvard University, delivered on 2 and 3 October 1962, in box 145, A3, WBA, and Brandt’s preparatory notes in box 160, D32, WBA. On Brandt’s ex ange with Fritz Sternberg, see S midt, ‘Wurzeln der Entspannung’, 549–51. 32. Brandt, Ordeal of Coexistence, 25. 33. Ibid., 77–78. 34. Brandt memo, ‘Entwurf’, 15 October 1956, box 78, A3, WBA. Brandt manuscript (unpublished), ‘Voraussetzungen des Ringens um die deuts e Einheit‘, spring 1957, box 81, A3, WBA. 35. Brandt speech at the Evangelic Academy in Loccum, 6 July 1960, in Brandt, Wille zum Frieden, 64. Brandt expressed analogous views in a speech in Philadelphia on 8 February 1958. 36. Brandt article in Lübe er Volksbote, ‘Kamerads a li keit! Ein Wort der Jugend an die Alten’, 24 September 1930, Berliner Ausgabe 1: 90–91. For more detail on Brandt’s relationship with communism in 1930–33, see Schöllgen, Willy Brandt, 24–35. Merseburger, Willy Brandt, 33–53. Berliner Ausgabe 1: 19–23, 92–94, 111, 129–32, 145–48. 37. S aap, Political Reconciliation, 5, 25, 35–39. 38. Brandt radio spee , ‘Wo uns der S uh drü t’, Berliner Rundfunk, 12 December 1960, box 108, A3, WBA. 39. Brandt, Ordeal of Coexistence, 77–78. 40. Brandt speech, party congress of SPD Berlin, 12 January 1958, Berliner Ausgabe 3: 224. 41. Brandt speech (published version), ‘Was können wir zur Wiedervereinigung tun?’, union congress of the police, Remagen, 27 April 1955, box 73, A3, WBA. 42. As was usual in West Germany at the time, Bahr referred to the GDR as the Soviet occupation ‘zone’. 43. Bahr spee , Evangelic Academy of Tutzing, 15 July 1963, in Bundesar iv (ed.), Dokumente zur Deuts landpolitik (DzD) 1963 (Frankfurt: Metzner, 1978) IV(9): 572–75. W. Brandt, Erinnerungen (Frankfurt: Propyläen, 1989), 73. 44. Argument developed by C.S. Maier, ‘Zu einer politis en Typologie der Aussöhnung’, Transit: Europäis e Revue no. 18 (1999–2000), 110–14. 45. Brandt spee , Evangelic Academy, Loccum, 6 July 1960, in Brandt, Wille zum Frieden, 63. 46. Brandt spee , Tutzing, 15 July 1963, Berliner Ausgabe 3: 420–21, 443–44. Brandt, Ordeal of Coexistence, 60 (quote). 47. ‘Aussöhnung unseres Volkes mit si selbst und mit seiner Vergangenheit’, Berliner Ausgabe 3: 421. As a dra structure of 15 May 1961 indicates, in case of election to the German Chancellery in 1961 Brandt would have dedicated an entire section of his governmental programme to the reconciliation of the German people with themselves: box 132, A6, WBA. 48. Brandt speech, Tutzing, 15 July 1963, Berliner Ausgabe 3: 421–23. 49. H. Arendt, ‘On Humanity in Dark Times: Thoughts about Lessing’, Address on accepting the Lessing Prize of the Free City of Hamburg, 28 September 1959, in H. Arendt,

58 | Reconciliation Road

50. 51. 52. 53.

54.

55. 56. 57.

58.

59. 60.

61.

62.

63.

64.

Men in Dark Times (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1968), 4, 19–20. See also S aap, Political Reconciliation, 3. K. Meyer, Die SPD und die NS-Vergangenheit 1945-1990 (Gö ingen: Wallstein, 2015), 224–25, 239–40, 271–72. Brandt, Erinnerungen, 243. Memo Kreisky, 6 Mar 1959, and le er from Kreisky to Brandt (quote), 11 Mar 1959, box 66, A6, WBA. Various documents in box 66, A6, WBA: memo Klein, 9 Mar 1959; protocol Klein, 9 Mar 1959; message von Brentano to Brandt, 9 Mar 1959; memo Brandt, 10 Mar 1959; response Brandt to Khrush ev, 10 Mar 1959. Handwri en notes by Brandt, 8–19 Mar 1959, Berliner Ausgabe 3: 258–65. W. Brandt, Begegnungen und Einsi ten: Die Jahre 1960-1975 (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 1976), 112. Brandt, Begegnungen, 112–13 (quotes). Handwri en notes by Brandt, ‘Notizen für Gesprä mit CHR.’, January 1963, box 73, A6, WBA. Various memos by Brandt and Bahr, 15–22 January 1963, box 338, Depositum Egon Bahr, Ar iv der sozialen Demokratie, Friedri -Ebert-Sti ung, Bonn (AdsD). Berliner Ausgabe 3: 396–99. Speicher, Berlin Origins, 256–57. See also C. Andrew and V. Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West (London: Penguin, 1999), 22–23, 574–78. Brandt, Begegnungen, 113. For the records of the Bahr-Beletzki conversations, see box 431B, Depositum Bahr, AdsD. E. Bahr, Zu meiner Zeit (Muni : Blessing, 1996), 164. S midt, ‘Deuts landpolitik’, 181–83. D. Prowe, ‘Die Anfänge der Brandts en Ostpolitik in Berlin 1961–1963’, in W. Benz and H. Graml (eds), Aspekte deuts er Außenpolitik im 20. Jahrhundert (Stu gart: Deuts e Verlags-Anstalt, 1976), 278–83. Khrushchev speech, 16 January 1963, East Berlin, DzD IV(9): 38–46. For Brandt’s analysis of the USSR–GDR treaty, see his Berlin press conference of 29 December 1964, Berliner Ausgabe 3: 473–74; and Meeting Brandt-Winckler, 20 June 1964, RFA 1603, Europe 1961–70, Archives du Ministère des Affaires Étrangères (AMAE), La Courneuve. For de Gaulle’s assessment, see interview with F. Puaux, 24 October 1989, Archives orales 34, AMAE. Memorandum Brandt, in Brandt, Wille zum Frieden, 115–24 (124 for the quote). Speech by US Secretary of State J.F. Byrnes, Restatement of Policy on Germany, Stu gart, 6 September 1946, h ps://usa.usembassy.de/etexts/ga4-460906.htm (last accessed 30 March 2020). C.A. Kupchan, How Enemies Become Friends: The Sources of Stable Peace (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012), 33. Conversely, see G. Lundestad, ‘Empire by Invitation? The United States and Western Europe, 1945–1952’, Journal of Peace Research 23(3) (1986), 263–77. Maier, ‘Typologie der Aussöhnung’, 107–10. T.A. Schwartz, America’s Germany: John J. McCloy and the Federal Republic of Germany (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), 156–75. D. Prowe, ‘Berlin: Catalyst and Fault Line of German-American Relations in the Cold War’, in D. Junker (ed.), The United States and Germany in the Era of the Cold War, 1945– 1990 (Washington: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 1: 165–66. T.A. Schwartz, ‘“No Harder Enterprise”: Politics and Policies in the German-American Relationship, 1945– 1968’, ibid., 29–31, 36–41. Brandt speech, Berlin congress hall, 8 Mai 1965, box 208, A3, WBA. J. Michel, Willy Brandts Amerikabild und -politik 1933-1992 (Gö ingen: Bonn University Press, 2010), 88–104.

The First Step – Coexistence (1955–66) | 59

65. Brandt spee in Tutzing, 15 July 1963 (quote), Berliner Ausgabe 3: 437. J. Mi el, ‘Willy Brandt und die Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika’, in Rother, Außenpolitik, 100–19 (119 for Brandt overlooking Kennedy’s role in starting the Vietnam war). S midt, Kalter Krieg, 163–64, 221–22. D. Münkel, ‘Als “deuts er Kennedy” zum Sieg? Willy Brandt, die USA und die Medien’, Zeithistoris e Fors ungen 1(2) (2004), 189–92. 66. Churchill speech at the University of Zurich, 19 September 1946, h ps://www.cvce.eu/ en/obj/address_given_by_winston_churchill_zurich_19_september_1946-en-7dc5a4cc4453-4c2a-b130-b534b7d76ebd.html (last accessed 30 March 2020). G. Lundestad, ‘Empire’ by Integration: The United States and European Integration, 1945–1997 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 30–33. 67. For a discussion of the Europeanist and Eurosceptic arguments, see R. Schwok, La construction européenne contribue-t-elle à la paix? (Lausanne: Presses polytechniques et universitaires romandes, 2016), 15–42. 68. Schuman Declaration, 9 May 1950, h ps://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/symbols/ europe-day/schuman-declaration_en (last accessed 30 March 2020). A. Bazin, ‘Les acteurs publics de la réconciliation en Europe depuis la fin de la Seconde Guerre mondiale’, Les Cahiers Sirice no. 15 (2016), 46–51. B. Stefanova, The Europeanisation of Conflict Resolutions: Regional Integration and Conflicts from the 1950s to the 21st Century (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011), 44–77. 69. D. Dinan, Europe Recast: A History of European Union (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2004), 267–73. 70. W. Brandt, Stormaktenes krigsmål og det nye Europa (Oslo, 1940), translated by E. Lorenz, Berliner Ausgabe 1: 474, 480. Brandt article, ‘Zur Na kriegspolitik der deuts en Sozialisten’, Sozialistis e S ri enreihe, July 1944, Berliner Ausgabe 2: 193–94. 71. Memorandum Brandt, sent to D. Rusk in August 1964, in Brandt, Wille zum Frieden, 115 (quote). E. Lorenz, ‘“Der Traum von Europas Vereinigten Staaten” – Europavorstellungen des jungen Willy Brandt 1940-1946’, in Wilkens, Auf dem ri tigen Weg, 42–43, 49–52. W. Loth, ‘Abs ied vom Nationalstaat? Willy Brandt und die europäis e Einigung’, in Rother, Neue Fragen, 116–20. C. Hiepel, ‘Europakonzeptionen und Europapolitik’, in Rother, Außenpolitik, 46–52. 72. Joint Franco-German Declaration, Paris, 22 January 1963, h ps://www.cvce.eu/en/obj/ joint_franco_german_declaration_paris_22_january_1963-en-5c771e9f-810d-426d-94ffee035b542a67.html (last accessed 30 March 2020). 73. From the large body of literature on the topic, see e.g. A. Ackermann, ‘Reconciliation as a Peace-Building Process in Postwar Europe: The Franco-German Case’, Peace & Change 19(3) (1994), 229–50. H. Miard-Delacroix and R. Hudemann (eds), Wandel und Integration: Deuts -französis e Annäherungen der fünfziger Jahre (Muni : Oldenbourg, 2005). 74. For more detail and references to further literature, see B. Schoenborn, La mésentente apprivoisée: de Gaulle et les Allemands, 1963–1969 (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2007).

Chapter 3

PROJECTING EAST–WEST RECONCILIATION (1966–69)

( Conceptually, we may call truth what we cannot change; metaphorically, it is the ground on which we stand and the sky that stretches above us. —Hannah Arendt, 19681

The Spectre of the Nazi Past As has already been demonstrated, Brandt was convinced that the German people needed to confront and address the burdens of the Nazi past and were not at liberty ‘to break free from the past as if it had never existed’. He called for the reconciliation of the Germans with themselves and emphasized that improving relations with their eastern neighbours would only become conceivable by fully acknowledging the past and the Germans’ guilt.2 This position is much in line with today’s literature about reconciliation, which assigns a significant role to collectively coming to terms with the past. Following Schaap, reconciliation is only feasible in a shared political space where people meet and recognize the commonness of the world between them. By contrast, individuals’ incapacities to face the reality of the past, widespread in postwar Germany, favoured withdrawal from the common world and therefore constituted an obstacle to reconciliation. The fact that a series of public debates on the Nazi past emerged in West Germany in the 1960s thus prepared the ground for Brandt’s international reconciliation policy and created an important domestic background, for actions such as his iconic Kniefall at the Warsaw Ghe o memorial in December 1970. Unravelling the truth about what Notes for this chapter begin on page 85.

Projecting East–West Reconciliation (1966–69) | 61

really happened during the Third Reich was the primary focus of the discussions in the 1960s. Such debates on the Nazi era gained momentum in the first half of the decade and became an integral part of the West German public discourse, initially in radicalized form, with the student revolts and the intergenerational confrontations of the late 1960s. By that time, Willy Brandt had entered the foreign ministry in a grand coalition government of CDU/CSU and SPD (from December 1966 to September 1969), and openly called for a policy of reconciliation with the people of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. The large-scale military tribunals held in Nuremberg from November 1945 to October 1946 a racted worldwide a ention but occasioned significantly less discussion in Germany than did the prosecution of Nazi crimes by the West German courts in the 1960s. The Nuremberg trials, organized by the victorious powers of the Second World War, addressed Nazi war crimes only and excluded any crimes potentially commi ed by the allies. Many Germans perceived the Nuremberg procedure as prearranged and the verdicts as marking the end of a long war fraught with suffering rather than the starting point for probing the past or pricking individual consciences. Moreover, in Nuremberg only twenty-one high-ranking Nazi leaders stood trial (a er the suicides of Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels and Heinrich Himmler), which fuelled the popular German interpretation of responsibility being confined to the leaders. The Nuremberg trials further dissociated the German people from their former leaders and hardly anybody wished to bridge this ‘comfortable distance’ (Ian Buruma).3 The allied occupation forces in Germany did, however, conduct a series of successor trials until 1949, with the Soviet and the US authorities each convicting several thousand individuals of Nazi war crimes. In contrast to the courtrooms, where the common people were not on trial, in the immediate postwar months an initiative by US General Eisenhower led to the screening of films about Nazi atrocities and the public display of the most heart-rending photographs from the concentration camps, with the caption Eure Schuld! (Your Guilt!). In summer 1945 these pictures were omnipresent in the US occupation zone and initiated subsequent German discussions on the question of collective guilt, albeit confined for more than fi een years to elite circles.4 While the Nuremberg trials were still in progress, in spring 1946 the German philosopher Karl Jaspers published the pivotal book Die Schuldfrage (translated as The Question of German Guilt), which also influenced Willy Brandt.5 Jaspers departed from the assumption that German guilt was undeniable and developed a concept comprising four different realms of guilt. First, criminal guilt is a consequence of breaking the prevailing legislation and is the province of the criminal courts, where judgement is passed on individuals –

62 | Reconciliation Road

as in Nuremberg.6 Second, political guilt is a consequence of acts perpetrated by representatives of the state, including the ‘political liability’ (politische Ha ung) of all citizens: ‘Everybody is co-responsible for the way he is governed.’ Third, moral guilt pertains to unethical behaviour that violates moral norms, whilst not necessarily breaking the law. Moral guilt emanates from one’s own conscience and from the individual community of loved ones. Fourth, metaphysical guilt belongs to the realm of religion and philosophy and originates from an innate solidarity among human beings in the face of injustice: ‘If I was present at the murder of others without risking my life to prevent it, I feel guilty in a way not adequately conceivable either legally, politically or morally.’7 On the grounds of these distinctions, Jaspers concluded that in a political sense all Germans were collectively ‘liable’ for the crimes commi ed in the name of the German State, because ‘A people answers for its polity.’ Such political guilt may result in reparations, the loss or restriction of political power and political rights, even destruction and deportation. Conversely, following Jaspers an entire people cannot be held responsible for a crime on legal, moral or metaphysical levels; moral and metaphysical guilt pertains to the individual’s conscience and relationship to God, realms which exist only individually rather than collectively. Regarding criminal and legal guilt, Jaspers maintained that it was nonsensical to charge a whole people with a crime, because the criminal is always an individual. He used the topical example ‘The Jews are guilty of the crucifixion of Jesus’ to demonstrate the misconception and logical error inherent in the notion of collective criminal guilt. In sum, Jaspers’ concept highlighted the distinction between collective guilt and individual guilt. A decisive point in his book was that Jaspers frankly admi ed his own individual guilt for not having risked his own life in the face of the ‘deportations and murders of our Jewish friends’.8 He recommended the public admission of individual guilt to start a cleansing process and to regain the ‘purity of soul’ reminiscent of the Christian concept of truth telling as a purging and new beginning (as seen in the confession). Jaspers’ introductory credo ‘Truth shall help us find our way’ has an equivalent in the New Testament and Christian doctrine.9 For the immediate future, Jaspers emphasized the need for the German people to ‘learn to talk with each other’ and to ‘restore the readiness to think’ with the objective of finding some common ground, a er the ‘common ethical-political base’ of German existence had been lost.10 Willy Brandt’s speeches and actions in the late 1960s and early 1970s show that he fully embraced Jasper’s postulate of the ‘political liability’ of all Germans and some related reasoning on guilt. Already in 1945–46, when Brandt reported from the Nuremberg trials for the Norwegian

Projecting East–West Reconciliation (1966–69) | 63

newspaper Arbeiderbladet and the social democratic press in Sweden, his writings expressed similar thoughts. Just a few weeks after the launch of Jaspers’ seminal book on German Guilt, Brandt published a longer but quickly written Norwegian manuscript on ‘Criminals and the other Germany’. In this book, Brandt rejected the thesis of collective guilt and differentiated between guilt and responsibility. The Nazis, in Germany as well as in other countries, were guilty; but even the genuine opponents of Nazism had to accept some co-responsibility (Mitverantwortung) for not having prevented Hitler’s rise to power. Between these two groups of people, according to Brandt, the mass of indifferent people bore a great responsibility for the Nazi crimes because of their ‘indifference and subservience’. However, rather than seeking to induce feelings of guilt through outward authorities, he demanded that the historic responsibility of the German people lead to a ‘greater sense of responsibility for the future’. During the Nuremberg trials, only Albert Speer among the defendants made an impression on Brandt, because he alone acknowledged responsibility for what he had done.11 This illustrates how much Brandt valued the taking of responsibility for the past, an attitude that also applied to his later life and political career. However, after the Second World War the vast majority of Germans had no inclination to take responsibility for the past, and even less to follow Jasper’s example of admitting personal guilt. In West Germany, until the early 1960s, most people adopted an attitude of selective memory and primarily recollected their own sufferings. They perceived themselves as victims who had been deceived by their diabolical leaders, thus denying the involvement of German society in the Nazi crimes. A sense of collective amnesia characterized the era, in line with Chancellor Adenauer’s inaugural declaration in September 1949 ‘to leave the past in the past whenever acceptable’.12 Washington had chosen the path of rehabilitating the Germans and integrating them into a new democratic system under US tutelage. The dilemma of building a democracy with former supporters of the Nazi regime was resolved at the cost of large-scale amnesties. Following the British historian Tony Judt, this kind of collective amnesia applied not only to Germany but also to other societies coming to terms with Nazi collaboration and actually was a precondition for the astonishing recovery of Europe during the early postwar years. Most German scholars take a more critical standpoint and deplore the ‘dubious tolerance’ (Peter Kielmansegg) of the West German State towards former Nazis, arguing that it diminished the credibility and force of integration of the young democracy.13 The SPD leadership supported the overall policy of rapidly integrating former Nazis and giving them a second chance on condition that they

64 | Reconciliation Road

henceforth espoused the tenets of democracy. Party leader Kurt S umaer who, like other social democrats, had spent much of the Nazi era in prison, rejected any notion of collective guilt as an a empt to ‘protect the guilty’ and accepted the SPD membership of individuals ‘led astray’ by the Nazi leaders already in 1946.14 In October 1951 Schumacher campaigned to offer some 900,000 former soldiers of the Waffen-SS a future worth living in the new West German democracy: ‘We should grant these men, who have commi ed no crime, the opportunity of making their way in what for them is a new world.’ Hence, like Adenauer’s CDU-dominated government, the SPD adopted the rationale of the Nuremberg trials and demanded punishment for the high-ranking Nazis only. But the SPD was also the decisive promoter of material compensation (Wiedergutmachung) for German residents persecuted by the Nazis, which led to compensation payments by the West German State to almost two million individuals until 1969. Overall and especially a er Schumacher’s death in 1952, the SPD pursued a rather discreet course of avoiding any public controversy regarding the West German Nazi past.15 It is doubtful whether the East German State dealt more efficiently and thoroughly with the Nazi past during the first postwar decade. On the one hand, the GDR rather swi ly removed some 200,000 former Nazis from high-ranking positions in the economy, the public administration and the judicial system. Until 1957 the East German regime put some 30,000 on trial and executed some 500 people for Nazi war crimes. This may suggest that the denazification purges in the GDR were somewhat more thorough, at least in prominent places and in the short term. On the other hand, the number of convictions in East and West Germany was roughly proportionate to the size of the respective populations and minor Nazis were le undisturbed in East and West Germany alike. Most importantly, the East German regime never accepted any heritage or responsibility resulting from the Nazi era, which means that the GDR undertook no far-reaching process of coming to terms with the past (Vergangenheitsbewältigung). By the late 1950s Ulbricht’s government concluded that former Nazis had all fled to the West and were no longer present in the GDR. Any domestic preoccupation with Nazism was officially over. Unofficially, the East German administration had been partly built on Nazi structures and the GDR regime had deliberately recruited former Nazis, for example as spies collecting incriminating information on West German officials.16 The East German a empt to expose the ‘Nazis in Bonn’, initiated in May 1957 as a systematic propaganda campaign, was one of several elements in the following decade giving rise to new West German debates on the Nazi past. The GDR’s objective was to besmirch West Germany as a fascist state and a danger to European peace, by demonstrating the conti-

Projecting East–West Reconciliation (1966–69) | 65

nuity of the elites from Hitler’s to Adenauer’s Germany. In 1957, 1959 and 1965 the GDR’s Commi ee for German Unity publicized some 900 names of prosecutors and judges and 1,900 other Nazi-era officials who still held leading positions in West Germany. The chairman of the commi ee, Albert Norden, also staged mock trials and launched campaigns against specific individuals, notably Adenauer’s chief of staff, Hans Globke. The fact that former Nazi elites had indeed been reintegrated into the West German administration and that the society did have a Nazi past, opened the door to Norden’s undeniably effective a acks. Adenauer’s decision in the early 1960s not to dismiss Globke, who had been involved in the formulation of the anti-Semitic Race Laws of 1935, only added fuel to an increasingly critical domestic discussion on former Nazis in elite positions. The SPD leadership addressed Norden’s campaign with circumspection and was keen to avoid any impression of espousing East German views. Caution was further advised because former members of the Nazi party had also made a career within the SPD, for example Karl Schiller, the minister of economic affairs in the grand coalition and later in Brandt’s government. Yet the most prominent former member of the Nazi party was Kurt Georg Kiesinger (CDU), West German chancellor from 1966 to 1969. Notwithstanding some virulent youth protests, he retained his position until the end of his term in October 1969. Quite tellingly, Kiesinger’s political achievements quickly sank into oblivion and the German public mostly remembered him as the German chancellor who was publicly slapped in the face by a young anti-Nazi activist, Beate Klarsfeld, at a congress of the CDU party in November 1968.17 These few examples may illustrate the dilemma but also the transformation of West German society since the 1950s. A er the Second World War, the Nazis had transformed into democrats without having to confront their past or accept any responsibility for it, but twenty years later society was no longer willing to supress these troubling memories. In this sense, the East German ‘anti-fascist’ campaigns eventually contributed to the democratization rather than the destabilization of West German society.18 The public points of contact with the Nazi past gradually increased a er the late 1950s and emerged from society as a whole rather than from political elites. Through their novels, talented authors like Günter Grass (Die Blechtrommel, 1959) or Heinrich Böll (Billard um halb zehn, 1959) brought the West German public face to face with the horrors of the Nazi era. The German translation of the diary of Anne Frank became a bestseller. German television increased the number of programmes about the Nazi era and in 1963 reached about one fi h of the population with a documentary series on the Third Reich, even though the viewing rate of the most denunciatory episodes significantly diminished. While in the

66 | Reconciliation Road

1950s history education had highlighted the sufferings and innocence of ordinary people in Nazi Germany, in the 1960s textbooks were revised to include more detail about past crimes. Starting in 1962, some West German universities offered courses on the history of Nazism, and from the mid-1960s schoolchildren made visits to the concentration camps of Dachau, Bergen-Belsen and Neuengamme, by then transformed into memorials.19 The key events propelling the Holocaust from collective amnesia into the public discourse were the criminal proceedings against Adolf Eichmann in 1961 in Jerusalem and against the Nazi personnel from AuschwitzBirkenau from 1963 to 1965 in Frankfurt am Main. Eichmann, who had been in charge of organizing the mass deportation of Jews under Hitler, disappeared in Argentina a er the war and was brought to justice by Israeli agents. The eight-month, televised trial included testimony in court from over a hundred witnesses, mostly survivors of the concentration camps, and reached audiences worldwide. Appalled and fascinated, in West Germany as many as eighty-five per cent of the population followed the proceedings. Reports described the shocked German audience as virtually paralysed by feelings of guilt when witnessing the horrific and detailed accounts of the Nazi campaign to exterminate European Jewry.20 Hannah Arendt’s controversial publications on the Eichmann trial, published in book form in 1963 (in English) and 1964 (in German), contributed decisively to prolonging the debate and to implanting the Holocaust in the German public discourse. She described Eichmann as a ‘terrifyingly normal’ bureaucrat lacking any ‘diabolical or demonic profundity’, whose inability to tell right from wrong was the result of sheer thoughtlessness.21 Arendt’s portrayal of ‘the banality of evil’ contrasted sharply with the commonly adopted image of fiendish Nazi elites as separate from German society, and many commentators mistakenly concluded that Arendt was playing down the Nazi crimes. Furthermore, her criticism of the co-operation between Jewish councils and the Nazis in organizing the deportations caused a wave of indignation in Israel and Germany.22 Addressing this kind of disapproval, Arendt elaborated on the innate tendency of politics to reject unwelcome truths and warned against reducing factual truth by treating it as just one opinion among others.23 While her concept of truth transcends the use of the term in the popular discourse, Arendt’s argument nevertheless highlights the leitmotif of truth seeking that pervaded the debates on the Nazi past in the 1960s. The Auschwitz trial from December 1963 to August 1965 in Frankfurt was another landmark event unse ling public opinion in West Germany. In contrast to the arrangements in Nuremberg in 1945–46, a German judge presided, and the proceedings focused not on Nazi leaders but on the

Projecting East–West Reconciliation (1966–69) | 67

FIGURE 3.1. In mid-December 1964, as part of the Auschwitz trial in Frankfurt am Main, eleven defence lawyers, three prosecutors and one defendant visited the concentration camp in Auschwitz (Poland). © dpa / MVphotos.

individual life stories of subordinate personnel. The subject ma er also changed. The Nuremberg judges had dealt primarily with crimes committed during the war itself, now the German courts addressed the genocide of the Jews and depicted the details of their industrialized extermination through horrific testimonies. During this process of remembering, Aus witz transformed into the defining characteristic of the Second World War. Indeed, the Auschwitz trial a racted overwhelming media a ention and filled the courtrooms, whereas similar and almost concurrent trials on the Treblinka, Dachau, Chelmno or Mauthausen concentration camps figured only peripherally in the public discussion. Equally paradoxically, the Nazi war against the Soviet Union, the millionfold slaughter on the Eastern front and the guilt related to this remained suppressed throughout the 1960s and only became part of the West German discourse and memory in the late 1980s.24

68 | Reconciliation Road

In March 1965, West German society took a lively interest in the Bundestag debates on whether the prosecution of Nazi era murders should be extended beyond the statutory period of twenty years. Radio and television broadcast these extensive discussions live. At an earlier debate in May 1960, the SPD had been the only political party advocating an extension to the limitations, but meanwhile a change of heart had taken place within the CDU and the vast majority of the parliament was in favour of extending the prosecution period for Nazi crimes – even if some CSU and most FDP representatives voted against it. The Western allies and Jewish associations had exerted considerable pressure on Bonn and received the decision of March 1965 with relief. Domestically, the passionate and proficient statement by Adolf Arndt (SPD) in favour of the extension impressed both his Bundestag colleagues and the general public, thereby familiarizing a wider audience with Jaspers’ approach to German guilt. Arndt described the Holocaust as the most ‘ghastly and malicious’ murder ever organized by a state and pleaded for continued prosecution on legal grounds, then called on his fellow Germans to acknowledge not only their judicial guilt but also their historical heritage and moral guilt. As Jaspers had done before him, Arndt publicly admi ed his individual guilt for not having done enough in support of the Jews: ‘we knew’ the essentials of what was going on, but ‘did not want to know’. Along with Fritz Bauer and Carlo Schmid, Arndt was one of a few SPD members who since the 1950s had led a lone struggle for the persecution of Nazi crimes. In the mid-1960s the overall policy of the SPD was to encourage critical yet not overly confrontational reflection on the past and revolved around the two notions of coming to terms with the past (Aufarbeitung) and reconciliation, in the sense of ‘learning from history but still looking forward’ (Kristina Meyer). Again, in Bundestag debates in June 1969 and July 1979, the SPD was the main driving force behind the call for persistent prosecution of Nazi crimes and for giving the victims a voice.25 On the societal level, by 1967 the protesting West German students took the lead in thematizing the Nazi past. The postwar generation increasingly rejected their parents’ coming to terms with the past as hypocritical and inadequate, and tended to perceive the societal and political structures of the FRG as condoning past wrongs. In many families, children asked, ‘What did you do in the war?’ and o en received unsatisfactory answers from their parents. Hence the Nazi past became a distinctly German element of generational confrontation against the background of global youth revolts in the late 1960s. Progressively radicalized, in June 1967 a part of West German youth understood the death of Benno Ohnesorg as proof of fascist elements inside the West German government, a er the young protester had been shot by a policeman (who was actually an East

Projecting East–West Reconciliation (1966–69) | 69

German agent). Some students even misinterpreted this event in the sense that German youth had now assumed the role formerly assigned to the Jews.26 The protest movement moreover postulated analogies between Aus witz and the US war in Vietnam, whilst Israel’s aggression in the Six-Day War was taken to mean that the Jews had now transformed from victims to butchers. The student movement thus instrumentalized the heritage of the past in order to expose the perceived double standard of the West German elites and their international allies, thereby also trivializing the nature of the Nazi crimes. As Detlef Siegfried has argued, the frequently abstract way in which Nazism was discussed by many young protesters helped them to make a clean break between past, present and future, rather than themselves endeavouring to come to terms with the Nazi past.27 To some extent this ambivalent conclusion is supported by various opinion polls showing that the intensified public discussion on Nazism in the 1960s (for example during the Auschwitz trial) was accompanied by stronger public support for drawing a final line under the Nazi past. This effect may be explained by oversaturation, by unconscious mechanisms of displacement or otherwise by deliberate political backlash.28 Despite very limited efforts by the student protesters to actually deal with past wrongs, their assertive revolts served to remove former barriers to discussing Nazism and established the Holocaust as a permanent element of the West German public discourse. This domestic transformation also provides the background for the policy of international reconciliation pursued by Willy Brandt’s government in the early 1970s, moving from an examination of the past and truth finding towards apology and atonement.

A Long Way to Go As foreign minister and vice-chancellor in a grand coalition government of the SPD and CDU/CSU from December 1966 until October 1969, Brandt now ranked among the top leaders in the FRG. He no longer represented just West Berlin but the whole of West Germany and was determined to use his new political authority to promote ‘reconciliation’ with the East. He endeavoured to multiply the practical contacts across the Iron Curtain and to project a future ‘we’ while his aid, Egon Bahr, secretly developed plans for pan-European structures uniting East and West. Foreign Minister Brandt’s efforts to overcome polarization and to rehumanize the Cold War enemy through direct contacts correspond to the next and thicker stage of reconciliation (stage two). However, Brandt’s enthusiasm was frustrated by hostile responses from most Eastern countries and by the

70 | Reconciliation Road

fact that Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger (CDU) insisted on his higher authority over relations with the East. Brandt’s ascendancy and gaining of the West German Foreign Ministry came rather unexpectedly. His political career actually appeared to be nearing its end when in September 1965 he lost his second campaign for the German chancellorship (to Ludwig Erhard, CDU) and declared that he would not run for a third time in 1969. A team member later commented that Brandt, who by nature had ‘a sensitive soul’, felt hurt and to some extent helpless when confronted with the hypocrisy of his opponents who again during the election campaign cast aspersions on his past as an emigrant. The possibility was in the air that the Brandt family might even relocate to Norway, the native country of Rut Brandt. Willy Brandt experienced months of ‘deep depression’ (Peter Merseburger) and in October 1966 suffered a collapse related to respiratory problems.29 The sudden demise of Chancellor Erhard one month later relaunched Brandt’s political career a er Erhard had proved unable to cope with the development of international politics and quarrels within his coalition. Foreign Minister Brandt made clear that he was no longer aiming at mere coexistence with the East, but at the more ambitious objective of reconciliation. When formally taking over the Auswärtiges Amt (the West German Foreign Ministry), on 6 December 1966 he declared: ‘For a good German future there is no other solution than to achieve reconciliation and lasting co-operation also with the East.’30 He emphasized the same objective when addressing the Assembly of the Western European Union on 14 December in Paris. The newspaper Bild ran a headline ‘Brandt in Paris: Reconciliation with the East’.31 During the negotiations for the political programme of the grand coalition government, Herbert Wehner had already explained to the Bundestag that the SPD insisted on the objective of ‘reconciliation’ with Germany’s eastern neighbours. Chancellor Kiesinger duly complied and included the goal of reconciliation with Poland in his first governmental declaration.32 Yet, throughout the grand coalition government of 1966–69, neither the CDU nor the chancellor but rather the SPD and Foreign Minister Brandt were the driving force promoting reconciliation with the East. These efforts focused primarily on Czechoslovakia and Poland but included all the peoples of Eastern Europe and specifically also of the Soviet Union. In a speech to the Bundestag, Brandt declared on 20 June 1968: The historical and long-term task of our foreign policy is reconciliation with our neighbours in the East, our immediate and less immediate neighbours in the East. Reconciliation – I am sure we all agree – is more than peaceful coexistence, more than exchange and co-operation. Reconciliation with our eastern

Projecting East–West Reconciliation (1966–69) | 71

neighbours requires our unrelenting efforts. But it is more than a German task. In reality, it means to work for a European peace order, which brings together East and West … Reconciliation with the East can only be achieved together with these peoples [on our side of the Iron Curtain], not by the Federal Republic of Germany single-handedly. Let everyone know: What we want is the reconciliation of the European peoples and thus also true peace with the Soviet Union.33

Two features of Brandt’s reconciliation policy during the grand coalition era deserve consideration: the practical aspects, which remained limited but prepared the ground for the initiatives a er 1969, and the political philosophy motivating the practical steps. The practical achievements of the grand coalition’s Eastern policy amounted mainly to the establishment of diplomatic relations and the signing of economic and cultural agreements with Romania and Yugoslavia, as well as the establishment of a West German trade mission in Prague. Secret talks with Soviet officials (on the renunciation of force) and an exchange of notes with the East German government set the stage for future contacts, even though nothing substantial came of it just yet. While Brandt’s SPD pushed for further initiatives and overtures towards the East, Kiesinger’s CDU/CSU was not ready to go beyond the consensus included in the governmental declaration of 13 December 1966. In this declaration, Kiesinger emphasized the West German will to reach an understanding with Czechoslovakia on the existing borders and affirmed that the Munich agreement of 1938 had been signed under duress and was no longer valid.34 He also acknowledged the right of the Polish people to live in a country with uncontested borders, but maintained that only the government of a united Germany would have the formal capacity to sign a border agreement with Poland (West Germany did not actually share a border with Poland). Moreover, the chancellor renewed the offer, originally made by Erhard in March 1966, to exchange reciprocal declarations on the renunciation of force with the Soviet Union and all Eastern European states. Finally, Kiesinger expressed the wish of his government to develop economic, cultural and intellectual exchange with the countries of Eastern Europe and, most importantly, to establish diplomatic relations.35 In January 1967, Romania seized the occasion to demonstrate its autonomous course in foreign policy and established diplomatic relations with West Germany without waiting for permission from Moscow. Twelve months later non-aligned Yugoslavia followed Romania’s example, but none of the most faithful members of the Eastern camp did so. The East German and Polish leaders in particular feared that their requirements might suffer from increased Eastern contacts with Bonn, and successfully called for a united Eastern front. At a conference of the European

72 | Reconciliation Road

communist parties in Karlovy Vary in late April 1967, the Eastern leaders jointly adopted a statement, originally dra ed by Walter Ulbricht and Władysław Gomułka, which listed an extensive catalogue of conditions for improving relations with West Germany. These demands included the formal recognition of the postwar borders and particularly of Poland’s western border (the ‘Oder–Neiße line’), the recognition of East Germany, independent status for West Berlin and the FRG’s full renunciation of any kind of access to nuclear weapons.36 Confronted with these ambitious demands, the West German government was faced with a fundamental choice. Either it must decide to make a leap of faith in its Eastern policy and offer far-reaching concessions, or it must continue to cling to the political relics of the Adenauer era, notably the remnants of the Hallstein Doctrine37 and the indefinite postponement of the Oder–Neiße issue. The controversy over the Oder–Neiße border had poisoned East–West relations since the late 1940s and resulted from the fact that the victorious powers in the Second World War had assigned the final se lement of the German borders to a peace conference, which never took place because of the emerging Cold War. Kiesinger confidentially admi ed that he did not expect any return of the German territories lost to Poland in 1945, yet he held the view that West German validation of the Oder–Neiße border would only strengthen East Germany, not the FRG’s relations with the Eastern camp.38 In sum, the East firmly demanded further concessions from Bonn, which Kiesinger and his party rejected. As a result, the grand coalition’s entire Eastern policy faltered. Overall, Brandt respected the limits of the Eastern policy defined by Kiesinger, but in some cases decided to exceed the chancellor’s guidelines. At an SPD party congress in March 1968 Brandt surprised the German public with his call to ‘recognize or respect the Oder–Neiße line’ until the signing of a peace treaty in order to open the road towards ‘reconciliation’ with Poland. Indeed, the Polish leadership perceived in Brandt’s statement a significant step forward.39 Brandt also urged the reluctant chancellor to sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and to renounce any German possession of atomic weapons, because ‘the credibility of our policy of détente is at stake’. At a UN conference in early September 1968, he delivered a high-profile and impassioned speech in favour of nuclear disarmament in Europe (thereby vastly exceeding official West German policy).40 Despite Kiesinger’s misgivings, Brandt also engaged in dialogue with Pyotr Abrassimov, the Soviet ambassador to East Germany. Their contact gained some notoriety when West German journalists began to speculate about the contents of a vodka-flavoured meeting, which took place on 18 June 1968 in Abrassimov’s East Berlin apartment. According to Brandt’s record, the atmosphere of the meeting was particularly casual,

Projecting East–West Reconciliation (1966–69) | 73

with a sauna taken together and a phone-call coming in from Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet Union’s number one; but the political positions remained unchanged and had nothing casual about them. Much in line with the Eastern propaganda of the late 1960s, Abrassimov accused Bonn’s grand coalition government of pursuing a policy of aggression and reviving Hitler’s scheme of finding German Lebensraum (living space) in the East, while ignoring the Eastern demands for an entirely new policy.41 Beyond these practical aspects of foreign policy, Brandt’s political philosophy underpinning the concrete steps and his contextual framing of the term reconciliation are also of interest here. Such an analytical perspective may show whether his understanding of reconciliation in the late 1960s included those elements that scholars habitually associate with reconciliation; in other words, whether Brandt’s approach qualifies as a policy of reconciliation in an academic sense, keeping in mind that there is no uniform view on what exactly reconciliation means. The fact that Brandt and Pyotr Abrassimov talked face-to-face about Germany’s Nazi past, even if the Soviet ambassador’s stance was confrontational and accusatory, means that from the point of view of reconciliation the talks promised potential benefits. Brandt and his aid, Gerhard Ritzel, duly acknowledged the suffering inflicted by Nazi Germany and referred to the wider history of Russian–German relations since the eighteenth century, of which the twelve Hitler years had been the grimmest period. From a theoretical viewpoint, when antagonists start talking about the dividing events of the common past, they may radically disagree about the meaning of these events for their relationship; but the admission that they are talking about the same events is all that is needed to initiate a process of reconciliation. Depending on the further development of the relationship, the addressing of past suffering may indeed contain the seed to reach beyond tolerance and peaceful coexistence.42 Furthermore, there is a significant difference between making wri en accusations and arguing face-to-face. When meeting physically, antagonists may start to perceive one another as human beings rather than as enemies and eventually develop a relationship where a ‘we’ becomes a possibility.43 Brandt and Abrassimov sharing a dinner together in the la er’s apartment, even a sauna, and drinking copious amounts of vodka, goes beyond mere diplomatic exchange and favours the perception of the other as a human being. In the context of West Germany establishing diplomatic relations with Romania and Yugoslavia, Brandt made official visits to Bucharest in August 1967 and to Yugoslavia in June 1968, meeting the Romanian leader Nicolae Ceaușescu and the Yugoslavian President Josip Broz Tito. During these visits, rather than dwelling on divisive issues, Brandt a empted ‘to find areas of agreement’ between West Germany and the Eastern European

74 | Reconciliation Road

countries.44 He found such areas in the obvious interests of both Romania and Yugoslavia in increasing trade with the economically potent Federal Republic, and the shared wish to transcend the East–West conflict. He specifically told his Romanian and Yugoslavian hosts that the long-term goal of West Germany was to overcome the division of Europe. Brandt’s approach was to increase the mutual understanding ‘in the hope that ideological barriers will gradually lose significance and no longer hinder the peoples of Europe from co-operating with each other’.45 Overall, Brandt’s discourse in Bucharest and Belgrade included various elements that scholars o en associate with reconciliation: the effort to overcome polarization and hostile propaganda and to rehumanize the other; the reference to a future created by ‘us’ Europeans, thus invoking ‘a “we” that is not yet’ (Andrew Schaap). Furthermore, he framed his visits to Bucharest and Belgrade in a long-term context and as part of an evolution towards increased communication, economic interdependence and diplomatic contact, while gradually eroding the relevance of the divisive aspects.46 Brandt also addressed the sufferings of the past. He talked about the Romanian and German armies fighting against each other during the First World War and the Nazi despots and their Romanian henchmen who endeavoured to ‘subordinate Romania to the Hitler-German diktat’, then accentuated the resolve of the German people to prepare the ground for reconciliation.47 Likewise, upon his arrival in Belgrade he highlighted his awareness of ‘how much wrong had been done to the peoples of Yugoslavia in the defiled name of Germany’ and laid a wreath at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Avala, outside the capital. A considerable part of Brandt’s talks with Tito and Yugoslavian Foreign Minister Marko Nikezić focused on material compensation for the injustices perpetrated by Nazi Germany. While the Yugoslavian hosts insisted on formal acts of reparation, Brandt offered financial aid under a framework of economic cooperation. He argued that the protesting West German youth showed little inclination to atone for the sins of their fathers and that his hands were tied by a complex web of legal obstacles. Tito did not hide his disappointment.48 Thus, Brandt’s first visit to Belgrade produced no solution but started a process of negotiations on the tortuous issue of wartime reparations. Tito and Brandt eventually found a solution in April 1973, during another meeting on Yugoslavian soil, and agreed on a generous scheme of German credits as part of long-term economic co-operation. Commenting on these negotiations, Brandt wrote in 1976: I must emphasize my full awareness that no material effort could ever erase the sufferings and crimes wrought by war and the Nazi dictatorship. I considered our country and nation to be bound by a historic duty and responsibility which

Projecting East–West Reconciliation (1966–69) | 75

could not be shrugged off as the rulers of the other German state were seeking to do. Although the German Federal Republic has done a great deal under the heading of ‘compensation’, this must not diminish our moral vigilance. To me, the recognition of realities entailed, first and last, sufficient courage to acknowledge our own history and its consequences.49

To acknowledge German history and its consequences was indeed an essential element of Brandt’s policy of reconciliation in the late 1960s. His a itude when addressing the Nazi past corresponded to the approach of Karl Jaspers in two key aspects. First, Brandt took the view that ‘the theory of collective guilt has always been dubious, wrong and dangerous’. Second, even if he considered the younger generations ‘free from moral guilt’, he was convinced that all Germans were ‘liable’ for the actions of Nazi Germany and had to accept the political consequences. This a itude and wording correspond exactly to Jaspers’ insistence on ‘political liability’, based on the assessment that ‘a people answers for its polity’.50 Under the consequences of the Nazi past, Brandt subsumed the requirement for Germany to renounce any kind of access to nuclear weapons.51 He also argued that the very division of Germany and the political realities of the late 1960s were a direct result of two world wars, with Germany partly responsible for the first and totally responsible for the second. At an SPD party congress in 1962 he stated bluntly: ‘The division of Germany is the result of Hitlerism and a corollary to the conflict between East and West.’52 As a German statesman Brandt acknowledged responsibility for everything commi ed in the name of his country, even when he was not personally to blame (this a itude later a racted international a ention with his Kniefall). For example, upon learning that on 21 August 1968 Czechoslovakia had been invaded by five member states of the Warsaw Pact, his initial reaction was to apologize to the Czechoslovak people for the fact that, once again, German troops (albeit East German units) had played a role in the occupation of their country.53 Brandt was aware that the unparalleled crimes commi ed during the Nazi era had ‘defiled’ the German name in the eyes of the entire world and the Germans therefore remained ‘on the moral defensive’. In a book entitled Peace Policy in Europe he wrote in 1968: ‘The war ended long ago. But the peace cannot be won without creating Europe and footing the bill for Hitler. This bill is still outstanding.’54 In the same book, Brandt referred to ‘reconciliation’ no less than twenty times. Twice in the sense of inner (German) reconciliation, six times in the context of Franco-German relations, four times with regard to a general reconciliation of Eastern and Western Europe, and seven times expressing the ambition to achieve German–Polish reconciliation. Brandt’s references to general East–West reconciliation remained somewhat vague and

76 | Reconciliation Road

blurred the lines between the reconciliation of Cold War antagonists and that of the Second World War adversaries. He was more specific about German–Polish reconciliation, which he wished to achieve along the model of Franco–German reconciliation and as a cornerstone of the future ‘European peace order’.55 There are some noteworthy analogies between Brandt’s approach as described in Peace Policy in Europe and academic definitions of reconciliation. His projection of a temporal progression from absence of war to dialogue, co-operation and eventually reconciliation, including true friendship between the peoples, resonates with the academic concept of reconciliation from thin to thick stages. Furthermore, Brandt described the future reconciliation with Poland as one from which all thought of resorting to violence would be absent. This view is reminiscent of the (later) definition of stable peace proposed by Kenneth Boulding: ‘Stable peace is a situation in which the probability of war is so small that it does not really enter the calculations of any of the people involved.’ In political science, stable peace is sometimes associated with interstate reconciliation in its thickest form.56 In sum, during the grand coalition era of 1966–69 Brandt made frequent mention of reconciliation, in his writings, speeches and the direct exchanges he had with Eastern leaders.57 However, the Soviet leadership did not take the objective of reconciliation at face value. For example, in April 1968 Bonn sent an official memorandum to Moscow expressing the ‘firm will to achieve reconciliation with the Eastern European countries and the Soviet Union and to live together as good neighbours’. In response, the Kremlin dismissed the ‘pretended purpose of reconciliation’ as an a empt by the West German government to ‘free its hands to continue its aggressive policy in Europe’.58 Egon Bahr interpreted the chill winds of opposition as a logical first reaction to the initiation of Ostpolitik. He advised Brandt to diligently and patiently pursue contacts with Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in order to gradually allay the fear of Germany and to shed the burdens of the past. Bahr noted: ‘Building on current realities, German Ostpolitik seeks to overcome the division of Europe.’59 In order to achieve this ambitious goal, Bahr devoted a considerable part of his working hours to dra ing papers on questions of European security and potential solutions to the German Question.

Security for and from Germany The dramatic conclusion of Bahr’s long-term plans and the policy recommendation he made to his boss, Willy Brandt, was to aim at the creation of a new pan-European security structure replacing NATO and the Warsaw

Projecting East–West Reconciliation (1966–69) | 77

Pact. For Bahr, this radical idea was not just a theoretical construct of the 1960s, but a policy plan he presented to Eastern leaders in the early 1970s and to which he actually adhered until the end of the Cold War. In late June 1990, shortly before Mikhail Gorbachev accepted the NATO membership of a unified Germany, Bahr spectacularly dismissed the planned enlargement of NATO as a relic of the old, confrontational thinking and instead called for the creation of a new European security system replacing the Cold War alliances.60 During Brandt’s chancellorship, when in 1973 Bahr’s plan was leaked to the press, the idea of abolishing the military blocs caused considerable turmoil among the Western allies who merely aspired to East–West détente, not to the transformation of Western structures. Against this background, academics have raised the question of whether the ultimate but unfulfilled objective of Brandt’s Ostpolitik included the abolition of the two military alliances.61 The focus here is then to explain Bahr’s rationale and to show how in the late 1960s Brandt did indeed wish to explore the option of a European security system, without commi ing himself to this objective. The theme of reconciliation is less overtly present in the remainder of this chapter than in previous parts, but it is related in two ways. Indirectly, because Brandt’s objectives of transcending the East–West conflict, preparing German unification and reconciliation with the East were inextricably linked. Directly, because Bahr’s plan of creating a pan-European security system projected an institutionalized ‘we’, encompassing East and West, through the transformation of political and military structures. This endeavour, if successful, would correspond to a relatively thick stage of reconciliation (stage three). As Brandt’s foreign policy advisor, Egon Bahr wrote two programmatic texts of relevance here. A 180-page manuscript completed in March 1966 and entitled What Now? and a more concise paper on European Security submi ed to Brandt in June 1968. The purpose and endpoint of both texts was not East–West coexistence or reconciliation but a (selfish) interest in German unification. The manuscript of 1966 rested on the assumption that the factitious East German regime did not enjoy any lasting support among its citizens and that the national consciousness persisted in the communist part of Germany, too. If given freedom of action, the East German people would therefore opt for national rapprochement and assuredly join the political maelstrom of the larger part of the divided country. Bahr believed that the guarantee of peace and security in Europe had the potential to become Moscow’s top priority, overshadowing the Soviet interest in keeping East Germany under communist control. Once the Soviet troops received orders to leave GDR territory, Bahr expected the East German regime to collapse and unification to follow in due course. In other words, he described the road to unification as a long-term negotiation and

78 | Reconciliation Road

political evolution, at the end of which the Soviet leaders would conceive of German unification as being in their own best interests.62 Bahr posited that security interests constituted the main obstacles to German unification, not only for Moscow but also for the West. Hence, he endeavoured to guarantee the security of the two superpowers and of Germany’s neighbours in a new framework that would allow for German unification. He argued that a united Germany as a member of NATO would inevitably tip the security balance in favour of the West, which Moscow could never condone. Conversely, an Eastern alliance including both parts of Germany would undermine the security of the Western allies. Following from this, Bahr drew the crucial conclusion that a unified Germany could never be a member of either NATO or the Warsaw Pact.63 Aiming to replace the existing military alliances, Bahr proposed ‘security for Germany’ through an international commitment to defend the German territories against foreign aggression and ‘security from Germany’ through a military alliance of the Four Powers against any a ack by Germany. According to Bahr’s analysis, at the very time of writing the security of West Germany was guaranteed first and foremost by American intercontinental missiles – not by NATO or the presence of nuclear missiles on West German territory. 64 Brandt, who seldom wrote internal memos, in a six-page handwri en note commented critically on Bahr’s manuscript and forbade its publication in order ‘to stay out of trouble’, but encouraged his advisor to further develop his conceptual approach.65 Upon entering the West German government in late 1966, Brandt insisted on appointing Bahr as the new head of the Planungsstab, so that his trusted advisor could continue the planning work initiated within the administrative framework of the foreign ministry.66 Even then, Bahr and his group of planners reported exclusively to Brandt. When they submi ed their main conceptual paper on European Security in June 1968, Chancellor Kiesinger was kept in the dark. This paper projected three possible scenarios of European security in the future – A, B and C – and evaluated them from the perspective of German unification. The short-term recommendation to the reader (Brandt) was to pursue Model A, which assumed the continued predominance of NATO and the Warsaw Pact as antagonistic alliances, without institutionally interlocking with each other. In this model, the paper proposed mutual force reductions and a reduction in nuclear weapons (nukleare Verdünnung) in the two parts of Germany as key measures to promote détente. Model B, which was to be avoided, examined the possible development of a bloc-to-bloc détente, with the two superpowers consolidating the bloc structures and creating a common and permanent framework

Projecting East–West Reconciliation (1966–69) | 79

over and above both pacts. The study concluded that such developments would institutionalize the division of Germany into two different bloc systems and impede reunification. Finally, the paper advocated the pursuit of Model C as soon as it emerged as a viable option. This model outlined the abolition of the two military alliances and the fundamental reorganization of European security. A new structure to include the two parts of Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and possibly additional states would be free of nuclear weapons and foreign troops. In this model the United States and the Soviet Union would undertake to protect the new system against foreign invasion but would not be part of it. A European security council established in East and West Berlin would gradually replace the role of the Four Powers and supervise an army constituted by the member states of the new system. According to the rationale of the study, it was in Washington’s interests not to allow any Soviet domination of the new system, thus Moscow would refrain from risking a major war.67 With the wisdom of hindsight, Bahr’s model C and the idea of abolishing the two military alliances may seem rather far-fetched, but his reasoning was not so very different from other contemporary schemes. Notable similarities can be traced to a 1967 study by the Centre for Study on Foreign Policy in Paris and to the various proposals of Polish Foreign Minister Adam Rapacki, even if Bahr later denied their influence on his own work.68 Moreover, the same extension of NATO beyond its trial period of twenty years, due to end in April 1969, was no foregone conclusion for the West Germans. Paris had le NATO’s integrated command structure in 1966–67 and France’s complete withdrawal from the Atlantic Alliance seemed possible until spring 1969. In Washington, against the background of the Vietnam War, Senator Mike Mansfield campaigned to bring US forces back from Europe. Like several other West German officials, Brandt voiced doubts regarding the permanent US presence in Europe. In July 1968 he deemed it ‘not realistic to believe that in another twenty years the American military presence in Europe will still be similar’.69 The question is, then, whether Brandt followed Bahr’s advice to aim at the creation of a new European security system. The evidence leaves li le doubt that Foreign Minister Brandt did indeed wish to explore whether the future might hold any alternatives to the military blocs. Shortly a er taking office as foreign minister, he asked the Council of the Western European Union (WEU) on 19 December 1966 ‘to explore the possibility of setting up a new European security system to replace the present NATO and Warsaw Pact blocs’. According to the record of the meeting in the WEU archives, Brandt argued that the ‘division of Europe would undoubtedly

80 | Reconciliation Road

one day give way to an effective security system’. In order to ‘heal’ the East–West wounds instead of keeping them open, he proposed to start with a ‘gradual and balanced reduction of the forces stationed on either side of the demarcation line’ with the goal of establishing a denuclearized zone. The similarities to Bahr’s conceptual recommendations are obvious. It turned out that the WEU Council feared upse ing the East–West military balance and continued to keep Brandt’s request at arm’s length until one year later, when Joseph Luns of Belgium and Alun Chalfont of the UK flatly rejected it as ‘dangerous’ and leading to an ‘unstable situation’.70 Turning to a different audience, on 2 July 1967 Brandt elaborated on the topic in an interview with the German radio station Deutschlandfunk. He outlined the ambitious project of a ‘European peace order’ that would truly overcome the Cold War and the political tensions between East and West. This new order would not just supplement the missing peace treaty a er the Second World War but create a pan-European practice of human rights laws and establish a reasonable economic association of the EEC and COMECON.71 A European security system could prepare and become part of such a peace order. Brandt reasoned that two different security models were conceivable. Either the existing military alliances would continue to exist and develop some form of reciprocal relationship, or ‘NATO and the Warsaw Pact would be gradually dissolved in Europe and replaced by something new’. As this interview a racted considerable attention and provoked a controversy with Kiesinger, Brandt subsequently emphasized that many reasons pointed to sticking to the existing military alliances and that NATO had not become ‘superfluous’.72 By 1967, all political parties represented in the Bundestag had come to agree that the future reunification of Germany was to take place within a ‘European peace order’ (Europäische Friedensordnung) – a vague and somewhat nebulous formula onto which the different parties projected their own interpretations. Originally used in a 1957 declaration, the term gained increasing popularity in the grand coalition era. Chancellor Kiesinger, who already referred to it in his first governmental declaration, related his hopes for a European peace order to a process of overcoming the East–West conflict, which would evolve into a framework for German reunification.73 The Free Democratic Party (FDP) produced studies remarkably similar to Bahr’s thoughts and the secret paper on European Security, and at least toyed with the idea of creating a new order by means of a European security system replacing the two military alliances.74 In the early 1970s the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) came to symbolize the West German hopes for such a European peace order, albeit mostly unfulfilled.

Projecting East–West Reconciliation (1966–69) | 81

The preparation of a NATO report on the ‘Future Tasks of the Alliance’ by the Harmel Group, named a er Belgian Foreign Minister Pierre Harmel, also played a role in this context. On 14 December 1967 the Atlantic Council adopted the Harmel Report stating that ‘the ultimate political purpose of the Alliance is to achieve a just and lasting peaceful order in Europe accompanied by appropriate security guarantees’. The West German delegation had been particularly active within the Harmel Group and managed to exert considerable influence over the content of the final report. As Willy Brandt publicly stated in summer 1967, his own initiative was instrumental in the Harmel Group’s emphasis on achieving a ‘just and lasting peaceful order’ in Europe.75 Hence, a er the unsuccessful a empt with the WEU, Brandt ultimately found in NATO’s Harmel Group an international forum that embraced and supported some of his ideas. This episode also illustrates a strategy that Brandt and his group successfully reapplied in later contexts: elevating the political authority of West German ideas by including them in an official declaration of an international institution or commi ee. Once NATO had adopted the Harmel Report, Brandt was in a position to refer to the ideas included in the document as official NATO policy, which he did extensively over the following years. The invasion of Czechoslovakia by the forces of the Warsaw Pact in August 1968 shi ed the emphasis of NATO back to problems of defence, and represented a serious setback for Brandt’s plans, yet he saw no other viable option than to pursue a policy of East–West dialogue. At a NATO meeting in April 1969 he called on his partners to engage in mutually balanced force reductions with the East in view of a permanent European peace order. Brandt argued that the call of the Warsaw Pact members of March 1969 to hold a pan-European security conference (the ‘Budapest Appeal’) offered the opportunity to make Western proposals and to introduce some aspects of a potential European security system into the public debate.76 Even though he highlighted the importance of NATO as long as Europe’s political tensions remained unresolved, he did not relinquish the notion of a longer-term dissolution of military alliances. In summer 1969 Brandt told Yugoslavian Foreign Minister Tepavac that, with the eventual reconciliation of Europe, the pact systems would become futile as a ma er of course. More poetically, to Adjunct Romanian Foreign Minister Macovescu he explained: ‘Allegorically speaking, we can say that a new building will have to be constructed between the two blocs. This building will gradually outgrow the blocs and make them dispensable, one day.’77 Again, the objectives of reconciling Cold War opponents and wartime enemies seemed to converge in Brandt’s rhetoric.

82 | Reconciliation Road

The Dawn of European Détente Brandt’s efforts to improve relations with the East and to some extent also his objective of reconciliation were in line with broader international developments and the evolution of West German politics in the 1960s. In Germany, the grand coalition years of 1966–69 are considered a transition period between the formative Adenauer era (under which the Erhard chancellorship is o en subsumed) and the social-liberal era shaped by Brandt and later Helmut Schmidt. The three years of the grand coalition allowed Brandt and his group of advisors to prepare the foundations of Ostpolitik, which led to the smooth and comprehensive implementation of the new programme upon the change of government in October 1969. While the grand coalition era thus prepared the ground for the launch of a novel Ostpolitik, from another perspective Brandt’s Eastern policy in 1966–69 was also an expansion of processes initiated earlier. Chancellor Adenauer’s risky but self-confident visit to Moscow in September 1955 had led to the establishment of diplomatic relations between West Germany and the Soviet Union and thus opened the way for future contacts, albeit on a limited scale.78 Gerhard Schröder, foreign minister 1961–66 under Adenauer and Erhard, promoted a ‘policy of movement’ towards the East and succeeded in opening West German trade missions in Poland, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria while the political climate remained frozen. In September 1964, Nikita Khrushchev accepted a secret invitation from Chancellor Erhard to visit Bonn, yet the Soviet leader was ousted from office before he could make the trip.79 Also during Erhard’s chancellorship and with the SPD’s support behind the scenes, in March 1966 Bonn sent a ‘peace note’ to all Eastern states (excluding the GDR) in an a empt to improve the political atmosphere. By the mid-1960s Belgium, Italy and the United Kingdom had taken initiatives to promote East–West détente and West Germany’s closest partners in the Atlantic Alliance and the European Community, respectively the United States and France, pushed Bonn towards a more conciliatory Eastern policy. Significantly for the context here, as part of his policy of ‘bridge building’ to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, US President Lyndon B. Johnson declared on 7 October 1966: ‘Our task is to achieve a reconciliation with the East – a shi from the narrow concept of coexistence to the broader vision of peaceful engagement.’ In the context of the Cold War and West Germany’s extensive dependence on the United States, President Johnson’s reference to East–West ‘reconciliation’ allowed West German officials to take up the term and in an important sense legitimized Brandt’s quest for reconciliation. Washington’s bridge building campaign did indeed bear a number of similarities with the approach Brandt and

Projecting East–West Reconciliation (1966–69) | 83

his office had been developing, even if the US plans remained largely rhetorical. According to Johnson, bridge building aimed at ‘making Europe whole again’ and ending ‘the bi er legacy of World War II’, by means of increased trade and cultural exchange with Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Other designated ‘bridges’ were humanitarian aid, scientific cooperation and facilitated travel between East and West. Moreover, Johnson aimed to ‘improve the East–West environment in order to achieve the unification of Germany in the context of a larger, peaceful and prosperous Europe’, a programme that corresponded well to Brandt’s policy of small steps.80 Whereas Brandt’s efforts towards reconciliation were only just beginning in late 1966, Johnson’s campaign for bridge building and reconciliation did not go very far. Moscow rejected the US initiative as an a empt to extend Western influence and sow discord among the Eastern allies, and Johnson’s pet project, the East–West trade bill, did not even pass the US Congress. There was indeed a fundamental contradiction in Johnson’s foreign policy approach. On the one hand he was fighting a war against the communist forces in Vietnam, which received political and material support from Eastern Europe, and on the other he wanted to increase trade with those same Eastern European countries. The bo om line is that Johnson’s policy of détente achieved only limited results, notably his meeting with Soviet Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin in New Jersey (June 1967) and the signing of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in July 1968.81 Johnson’s successor as US President, Richard Nixon, took office in January 1969 with a foreign policy agenda of détente and the promise of peace. Nixon and his national security advisor Henry Kissinger, however, distanced themselves from bridge building and Johnson’s ambition to exert influence on the East European masses, and understood détente as a process between governments.82 The Nixon administration intended to emphasize Washington–Moscow relations and hence to pursue the kind of bloc-to-bloc détente against which Bahr had warned in his analysis of Model B. Nixon and Kissinger, who played a particularly influential role, were instrumental in backing up Chancellor Brandt’s Ostpolitik and providing the vital support of the Western Alliance. Yet the Nixon–Brandt relation and the close contacts between Kissinger and Bahr were complex and somewhat tarnished by US concerns about the longer-term consequences of Ostpolitik. In this context, Egon Bahr’s visit to Harvard University in April 1965 and his candid overtures to Kissinger may be deemed counterproductive. A er Bahr’s departure Kissinger dra ed a record of the conversation and sent it to the White House, describing the long-term plans of Brandt’s advisor: ‘A unified Germany would leave NATO’ and renounce nuclear weapons, ‘Foreign troops would be withdrawn’ from

84 | Reconciliation Road

German territories and ‘NATO itself would probably disintegrate’. In the cover le er to McGeorge Bundy, Kissinger added that he expected ‘a rocky time ahead’ if Brandt should be elected chancellor.83 That ‘rocky time’ began only four years later, in October 1969. Meanwhile, French President de Gaulle had set the stage for European détente and Chancellor Brandt’s Ostpolitik. Taking advantage of the leeway created by the apparent détente between the United States and the Soviet Union, in 1964 de Gaulle and his government started to engage in bilateral talks with Soviet and Eastern European officials. In April 1965 de Gaulle received Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko in the Elysée Palace and in June 1966 paid a high-profile visit to the USSR, accompanied by a large French delegation. Kosygin (but not Leonid Brezhnev) returned the visit a few months later. In September 1967 and May 1968 respectively, de Gaulle met with the Polish and Romanian leaders in Warsaw and Bucharest. Several dozen ministerial level meetings between French and Eastern officials took place. De Gaulle’s ambition to influence East–West relations towards European ‘détente, entente, co-operation’ corresponded to his goal of re-establishing France’s international status and his fundamental objective to overcome the East–West bloc system, where final decision-making authority rested solely with Washington and Moscow. He was convinced that a world in equilibrium needed a strong European pillar and promoted a ‘European Europe’ in which European leaders would shoulder their own responsibilities and gradually become less dependent on US decisions.84 Willy Brandt rejected de Gaulle’s provocative stance towards Washington and o en found himself opposed to French EEC policy, but was clearly fascinated by the French president’s effort ‘to think the unthinkable’ and to set the frozen East–West fronts in motion.85 When in February 1965 de Gaulle publicly developed the long-term prospect of a ‘harmonious Europe engaged in co-operation from the Atlantic to the Urals’, in which Russia would renounce ‘totalitarian constraint’ and the European peoples would agree on ending the ‘anomalies’ of a divided Germany, Brandt was impressed by this expression of a ‘grand thought’.86 In contrast to many other West Germans, he was not offended by de Gaulle’s accompanying demand that Bonn definitely renounce any access to nuclear weaponry and any territorial claim, notably beyond the Oder–Neiße line. Conversely, Paris appreciated Brandt’s ‘parallel reasoning’ on East–West relations. With the advent of the grand coalition government in December 1966, Bonn and Paris launched the project of a common Eastern policy and, initially, Brandt readily accepted the role of junior partner in this endeavour. He acknowledged that the French had already ‘progressed further’ than the Germans in developing contacts through the Iron Curtain.87

Projecting East–West Reconciliation (1966–69) | 85

However, a er a short-lived Franco-German honeymoon in 1967 the limits of the common Eastern policy soon became apparent. Brandt’s advisors pointed out that Paris did not have exactly the same interests as Bonn and that de Gaulle tended to overestimate the importance of France to the Eastern decision-makers. While de Gaulle expected to negotiate with the East on Germany’s behalf – not least because of widespread anti-German feeling and Eastern memories of the Nazi era – Bahr judged that the West German leaders needed to take the decisive steps themselves. Moreover, the Soviet side became increasingly embarrassed by de Gaulle encouraging Eastern European governments to become more independent from Moscow, and by 1968 the Germans correctly observed that French–Soviet contacts were approaching a stalemate.88 When Brandt neglected his consultation duties with Paris during the French civil unrest of May–June 1968, the puzzled French diplomats learned that Brandt was enjoying regular contacts with the reformist government of Alexander Dubček in Prague. At the same time, Gerhard Ritzel somewhat naively disclosed that Brandt envisaged large-scale co-operation and reconciliation with the Soviet Union, which aroused French fears of a new ‘Rapallo’ – German-Soviet collusion to the detriment of Europe.89 A er the Warsaw Pact’s invasion of Czechoslovakia, a tempestuous Franco-German confrontation ensued, from which the project of a common Eastern policy never recovered. Disillusioned, de Gaulle no longer informed the Germans of his contacts with Eastern leaders until in April 1969 he rather unexpectedly stepped down as French president.90 His successor and long-serving prime minister, Georges Pompidou, applied himself to keeping up the dynamic of de Gaulle’s Eastern policy, yet soon discovered that the momentum had changed and the West Germans were to take the lead in European détente.

Notes 1. H. Arendt, ‘Truth and Politics’, in H. Arendt, Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought (New York: Viking Press, 1987), 264. 2. Brandt spee , Evangelic Academy, Loccum, 6 July 1960, in Brandt, Wille zum Frieden, 63 (quote). Brandt, Friedenspolitik, 18–19. 3. I. Buruma, The Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany and Japan (London: Phoenix, 2002), 150. 4. Lind, Sorry States, 106–7. B. Wolbring, ‘Nationales Stigma und persönli e S uld: Die Deba e über Kollektivs uld in der Na kriegszeit’, Historis e Zeits ri no. 289 (2009), 327–38. A. Assmann, ‘Ein deuts es Trauma? Die Kollektivs uldthese zwis en Erinnern und Vergessen’, Merkur 53 (1999), 1,142–54. For detail on trials and convictions, see A. Götz, Bilanz der Verfolgung von NS-Stra aten (Cologne: Bundesanzeiger, 1986).

86 | Reconciliation Road

5. K. Jaspers, Die S uldfrage (Heidelberg: Lambert S neider, 1946). The English quotes follow the translation by E.B. Ashton: K. Jaspers, The Question of German Guilt (New York: Fordham University Press, 2000). 6. Jaspers was aware that the Nuremberg judges investigated ‘crimes against peace’ and ‘crimes against humanity’ based on retroactive victors’ laws, but in 1946 maintained that these laws were consistent with generally accepted values of humanity. 7. Jaspers, German Guilt, 25–27. 8. In the book, Jaspers did not mention that he had endured personal discrimination during the Nazi era in order to save his Jewish wife from deportation. 9. Wolbring, ‘Nationales Stigma’, 350. The passage in John 8:32 reads: ‘And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’ 10. Jaspers, Die S uldfrage, 14–72. Quotes in order of use: Jaspers, German Guilt, 55, 35, 9, 5, 5, 6, 16. 11. W. Brandt, Forbrytere og andre tyskere, 1946, published in German under the (misleading) title Verbre er und andere Deuts e: Ein Beri t aus Deuts land 1946 (Bonn: Dietz, 2007), 55–57 (quotes). Merseburger, Willy Brandt, 230. On Brandt’s error of judgement regarding the potential for change of Nazis like Speer, see Meyer, Die SPD, 292. 12. Plenary session 01/005, 20 September 1949, 27, h p://dipbt.bundestag.de/doc/btp/01/ 01005.pdf (last accessed 30 March 2020). 13. T. Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945 (New York: Penguin Press, 2005), 53–62. P.G. Kielmansegg, Na der Katastrophe: Eine Ges i te des geteilten Deuts land (Berlin: Siedler, 2000), 115–16. For detail on the West German amnesty laws of 1949 and 1954, see N. Frei, Adenauer’s Germany and the Nazi Past: The Politics of Amnesty and Integration (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 5–92. 14. Meyer, Die SPD, 53, 74. 15. Schumacher’s speech of 30 October 1951 quoted in A. Wolff-Powęska, Memory as Burden and Liberation: Germans and their Nazi Past (1945–1990) (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2015), 175. K. Meyer, ‘Wiedergutma ung na 1945: Politik, Praxis und sozialdemokratis es Engagement’, Polis: Analysen, Meinungen, Deba en 56 (2014), 61–64, 75–80. 16. For instance, the German Labour Front was simply renamed and reinstated under communist rule, and the secret service (Stasi) took over thousands of former Gestapo officials. H. Leide, NS-Verbre er und Staatssi erheit: Die geheime Vergangenheitspolitik der DDR (Gö ingen: Vandenhoe & Rupre t, 2005), 27–65, 191–98, 413–17. J. Herf, Divided Memory: The Nazi Past in the Two Germanys (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 335–37. Buruma, Wages of Guilt, 155–57. 17. In contrast to the popular perception, recent academic research tends to emphasize Kiesinger’s resistance to the Nazi ideology from within the administration of the Third Reich. See especially P. Gassert, Kurt Georg Kiesinger 1904–1988: Kanzler zwis en den Zeiten (Muni : DVA, 2006), 105–59. 18. W. Loth and B.A. Rusinek, ‘Einleitung’, in W. Loth and B.A. Rusinek (eds), Verwandlungspolitik: NS-Eliten in der westdeuts en Na kriegsgesells a (Frankfurt: Campus, 1998), 7–8. Herf, Divided Memory, 181–85. H. Camarade, ‘Le passé national-socialiste dans la société ouest-allemande entre 1958 et 1968: Modalités d’un changement de paradigme mémoriel’, Vingtième siècle: Revue d’histoire no. 110 (2011), 84–85, 94. 19. K.H. Jarausch, ‘Critical Memory and Civil Society: The Impact of the 1960s on German Debates about the Past’, in P. Gassert and A.E. Steinweis (eds), Coping with the Nazi Past: West German Debates on Nazism and Generational Conflict, 1955–1975 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2006), 20–21. Camarade, ‘Le passé national-socialiste’, 86–90. Lind, Sorry States, 112, 130.

Projecting East–West Reconciliation (1966–69) | 87

20. M. von Miquel, ‘Explanation, Dissociation, Apologia: The Debate over the Criminal Prosecution of Nazi Crimes in the 1960s’, in Gassert and Steinweis, Nazi Past, 53–54. Lind, Sorry States, 128. 21. H. Arendt, Ei mann in Jerusalem: Ein Beri t von der Banalität des Bösen (Muni : Piper, 1999), 57, 400. 22. Arendt, Eichmann, 211, however argued that Israeli schoolbooks openly discussed these facts. 23. Arendt, ‘Truth and Politics’, 227, 237–38. Schaap, Political Reconciliation, 135. 24. Buruma, Wages of Guilt, 148–49. Miquel, ‘Apologia’, 54. D. Siegfried, ‘Zwis en Aufarbeitung und S lussstri : Der Umgang mit der NS-Vergangenheit in den beiden deuts en Staaten 1958 bis 1969’, in A. S ildt, D. Siegfried and K.C. Lammers (eds), Dynamis e Zeiten: Die 60er Jahre in den beiden deuts en Gesells a en (Hamburg: Hans Christians Verlag, 2003), 94. C. Morina, Legacies of Stalingrad: Remembering the Eastern Front in Germany since 1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 194–96. 25. Plenary session 04/170, 10 March 1965, 8,551–53, h p://dipbt.bundestag.de/doc/ btp/04/04170.pdf (last accessed 30 March 2020) (Arndt quotes). See also the other Verjährungsdeba en in the Bundestag, on 20 and 24 May 1960, 25 March 1965, 11 June 1969 and 3 July 1979, h ps://pdok.bundestag.de/ (last accessed 30 March 2020). Critical analysis of all four debates in Herf, Divided Memory, 337–42. K. Meyer, ‘Mehr “Mut zur Wahrheit” wagen? Willy Brandt, die Deuts en und die NS-Vergangenheit’, in A. S ildt and W. S midt (eds), ‘Wir wollen mehr Demokratie wagen’: Antriebskrä e, Realität und Mythos eines Verspre ens (Bonn: Dietz, 2019), 48. 26. Camarade, ‘Le passé national-socialiste’, 92. Notably the philosopher Theodor W. Adorno supported this interpretation. In 2009 the historians Helmut Müller-Enbergs and Cornelia Jabs discovered that the police officer in question, Karl-Heinz Kurras, had been an active Stasi agent since 1955. 27. D. Siegfried, ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger: Youth, Pop Culture, and the Nazi Past’, in Gassert and Steinweis, Nazi Past, 144, 154, 156. 28. Siegfried, ‘Zwischen Aufarbeitung’, 95, 104–5. According to an Allensbach poll, in 1961 fi een per cent of the public wished to have no more trials for Nazi crimes, but this figure rose to fi y-seven per cent by the end of the Auschwitz trial in 1965. 29. Bahr, Zu meiner Zeit, 178–79. Merseburger, Willy Brandt, 483. S öllgen, Willy Brandt, 125. 30. Berliner Ausgabe 3: 109. 31. ‘Brandt in Paris: Aussöhnung mit dem Osten’, Bild, 15 December 1966, 1. For Brandt’s spee , Ar iv der Gegenwart, CD-Rom (Sankt Augustin: Siegler, 2000), p. 22,486–94. 32. Wehner speech, plenary session 05/070, 8 November 1966, 3,299, h p://dipbt.bundestag .de/doc/btp/05/05070.pdf (last accessed 30 March 2020). Governmental declaration by Kiesinger, plenary session 05/080, 13 December 1966, 3,662, h p://dipbt.bundestag.de/ doc/btp/05/05080.pdf (last accessed 30 March 2020). 33. Plenary session 05/180, 20 June 1968, 9,702, h p://dipbt.bundestag.de/doc/btp/05/05180 .pdf (last accessed 30 March 2020). 34. On 29 September 1938, Nazi Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Italy signed the Munich Agreement, under which the Sudetenland was ceded to Germany. In order to avoid war with Germany, Czechoslovakia complied with the agreement and the loss of the Sudetenland, which amounted to one quarter of its territory. 35. Governmental declaration by Kiesinger, plenary session 05/080, 13 December 1966, 3,662, h p://dipbt.bundestag.de/doc/btp/05/05080.pdf (last accessed 30 March 2020). 36. W. Jarząbek, ‘“Ulbri t-Doktrin” oder “Gomulka-Doktrin”? Das Bemühen der Volksrepublik Polen um eine ges lossene Politik des kommunistis en Blo s gegenüber der

88 | Reconciliation Road

37.

38.

39.

40.

41.

42. 43. 44. 45.

46. 47. 48. 49. 50.

51.

52.

westdeuts en Ostpolitik 1966/67’, Zeits ri für Ostmi eleuropa-Fors ung 55(1) (2006), 82–83, 96–98. H. Ha endorn, Coming of Age, 157–61. In late 1955, the doctrine was named a er Walter Hallstein, state secretary in the West German Foreign Ministry. It stipulated that West Germany would not have any diplomatic relations with countries recognizing the GDR. The main objective of this policy was to isolate the GDR and to prevent its international recognition as a state. However, Bonn did engage in diplomatic relations with Moscow as of September 1955 and explained this exception through the USSR’s special responsibility for the German Question. Memorandum Osterheld on German foreign policy, 31 Mar 1967, box Kiesinger 1, Na lass Osterheld, Ar iv für Christli -Demokratis e Politik, Sankt Augustin (ACDP). Meeting Kiesinger-de Gaulle, 14 January 1967, box A292, Nachlass Kiesinger, ACDP. Brandt speech at the SPD party congress in Nuremberg, 18 March 1968, in Brandt, Parteitagsreden, 165 (quote). T. Senoo, Ein Irrweg zur deuts en Einheit? Egon Bahrs Konzeptionen, die Ostpolitik und die KSZE 1963–1975 (Frankfurt: Peter Lang 2011), 86. D. Selvage, ‘The Treaty of Warsaw: The Warsaw Pact Context’, GHI Bulletin Supplement 1 (2003), 72. Le er Brandt to Kiesinger, 15 July 1968, in H.P. S warz (ed.), Akten zur Auswärtigen Politik der Bundesrepublik Deuts land (AAPD) (Muni : Oldenbourg, 1999) 1968(2): 869 (quote). Brandt speech, 3 September 1968, Geneva conference of non-nuclear-weapon states, https://www.willy-brandt-biografie.de/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/1968_Brandt _Nichtkernwaffen_5104.pdf (last accessed 30 March 2020). See also W.G. Gray, ‘Abstinence and Ostpolitik: Brandt’s Government and the Nuclear Question’, in C. Fink and B. Schaefer (eds), Ostpolitik and the World, 1969–1974 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 247–50. Wri en exchange Kiesinger–Brandt, 31 May and 2 June 1967, box A001, Nachlass Kiesinger, ACDP. Meeting Brandt–Abrassimov, 18 June 1968, AAPD 1968(1): 752–61. Brandt had met with Abrassimov five times in 1966, but at Kiesinger’s request suspended these meetings until June 1968. See also Brandt, Begegnungen, 114–22. Schaap, Political Reconciliation, 36–39, 84–85. Lederach, Building Peace, 34–35. Schaap, Political Reconciliation, 87. Meeting Brandt–Ceaușescu, 5 August 1967, AAPD 1967(2): 1,171. Brandt dinner speech, meeting with Yugoslavian Foreign Minister Tepavac, 27 July 1969, Bulletin der Bundesregierung, 30 July 1969, p. 850 (quote). Brandt press conference upon return from Belgrade, 15 June 1968, Archiv der Gegenwart, 24,591. Meeting Brandt– Manescu, Bucharest, 3 August 1967, AAPD 1967(2): 1,166. Schaap, Political Reconciliation, 77. Ramsbotham et al., Conflict Resolution, 286–310. See also K.E. Boulding, Stable Peace (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1978), 62–64. Brandt speech at dinner honouring Romanian Foreign Minister Manescu, 30 January 1967, Archiv der Gegenwart, 22,660–62. Brandt, People and Politics, 175 (quote). Meetings Brandt with Tito and Nikezić, 12–14 June 1968, AAPD 1968(1): 714–20, 732–35. Brandt, People and Politics, 180–81. Brandt speech, Inauguration of German-Israeli Society, 19 May 1966, box 232, A3, WBA. Brandt spee , NATO Ministerial Council, 15 December 1966, in Brandt, Wille zum Frieden, 198. Brandt, Friedenspolitik, 22. Jaspers, German Guilt, 55. Tutzing speech, 15 July 1963, Berliner Ausgabe 3: 419–23, 443–44. Geneva speech, 3 September 1968, h ps://www.willy-brandt-biografie.de/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/1968_ Brandt_Nichtkernwaffen_5104.pdf (last accessed 30 March 2020). Brandt speech, SPD party congress in Cologne, 27 May 1962, in Brandt, Parteitagsreden, 63 (quote). Brandt, Friedenspolitik, 18.

Projecting East–West Reconciliation (1966–69) | 89

53. Brandt statement at the airport upon return from Norway, 21 August 1968, box 91, Na lass Gu enberg, Bundesarchiv, Koblenz (BArch). 54. Brandt, Friedenspolitik, 18–19. 55. Ibid., 10, 12, 43, 46, 50–51, 66, 74, 114–18, 122, 154, 171. 56. Boulding, Stable Peace, 13 (quote). Brandt, Friedenspolitik, 115–16, 154. Kup an, How Enemies, 28–32. 57. As an example of a publication in English language, see W. Brandt, ‘German Policy toward the East’, Foreign Affairs 46(3) (1968), 480, 484. 58. West German memorandum of 9 April 1968 and Soviet memorandum of 5 July 1968, Archiv der Gegenwart, 24,793, 24,820. 59. Bahr memorandum, ‘Thesen zur Ostpolitik’, late 1967 (undated), box 400, Depositum Bahr, AdsD (quote). Bahr memorandum for Brandt, ‘Gesichtspunkte über Ost-Politik’, 4 December 1967, box 399, Depositum Bahr, AdsD. 60. E. Bahr, ‘Si erheit dur Annäherung: Eine europäis e Si erheitsgemeins a in Zentraleuropa’, Die Zeit, 29 June 1990. In his 1996 memoirs (Zu meiner Zeit, 224–30) and in later statements, Bahr tended to downplay the political significance of his planning studies in the 1960s. 61. Soutou, Cinquante Ans, 501. 62. Bahr manuscript ‘Was nun?’, Mar 1966, box 465, Depositum Bahr, AdsD, 19–21, 28–36, 85–88, 122–26. E. Bahr, Si erheit für und vor Deuts land: Vom Wandel dur Annäherung zur Europäis en Si erheitsgemeins a (Muni : Hanser, 1991), 18. See also the evaluation of Bahr’s plan by Vogtmeier, Egon Bahr, 80–95. 63. Bahr manuscript, ‘Was nun?’, 90–92. 64. Ibid., 93–96, 117–19, 163. 65. Brandt memorandum, ‘Zu: Was nun?’, 6 April 1966, box 466, Depositum Bahr, AdsD. 66. Le er Brandt to Bundesre nungshof, ‘Ausnahmeantrag für Herrn Egon Bahr’, 24 May 1967, box 20, A7, WBA. 67. Bahr memorandum, ‘Europäis e Si erheit’, 27 June 1968, AAPD 1968(1): 796–814. See also the various dra s in box 316, Dep. Bahr, AdsD. On the significance Bahr a ributed to his plans in 1968–69, see Le er Bahr to Brandt, 19 August 1968, AAPD 1968(2): 1,006–7 and Memorandum Planungsstab, 24 March 1969, AAPD 1969(1): 433. 68. Study by the Centre d’études de politique étrangère, November 1967, DzD V(2): 1,923–35. Memo Verbeek, 26 January 1968, box 178,364, B9, PA/AA. Author’s interview with Bahr, 5 May 2009. For the first time at the UN General Assembly of 2 October 1957 and in some minor variations throughout the 1960s, Rapacki had proposed establishing a denuclearized zone comprising Poland and the two German states. 69. Brandt interview, Der Spiegel, 1 July 1968, Berliner Ausgabe 6: 154. H. Zimmermann, ‘The Improbable Permanence of a Commitment: America’s Troop Presence in Europe during the Cold War’, Journal of Cold War Studies 11(1) (2009), 3–27. 70. Minutes of the WEU Council held at ministerial level in Bonn, 19 December 1966, 9–10, file 213.10.46, Organs of WEU, year 1967, WEU Archives, Luxembourg. Minutes of the WEU Council held at ministerial level in Brussels, 29 January 1968, 21–22 and 31 (quotes by Chalfont), file 213.10.49, Organs of WEU, year 1968, WEU Archives. 71. COMECON (or CMEA) refers to the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, founded in 1949 under Soviet leadership. 72. Brandt interview, Deuts landfunk, 2 July 1967, Bulletin der Bundesregierung, 4 July 1967, 605–6 (quote). Brandt article for ‘Außenpolitik: Zeits ri für internationale Fragen’, August 1967, Berliner Ausgabe 6: 130–37. 73. Berlin Declaration by the Three Western Powers and the German Federal Republic on Reunification, 29 July 1957, h p://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/document.cfm?docu-

90 | Reconciliation Road

74.

75.

76.

77.

78.

79.

80.

81.

82. 83.

84.

85. 86.

ment_id=3088 (last accessed 30 March 2020) (‘Eine europäische Friedensordnung’ in the German document, ‘A European se lement’ in the English one). S midt, ‘Deuts landpolitik’, 190–91. Garton Ash, In Europe’s Name, 17. R. Sperber, ‘Grundzüge eines Europäis en Si erheits-Systems’, Neue Politik, 22 June 1968. V. Erhard, ‘Die S ollwer-Papiere von 1962 und 1967: Meilensteine auf dem Weg der FDP zur Neuen Deuts land- und Ostpolitik’, in R. Hübs and J. Fröli (eds), Deuts -deuts er Liberalismus im Kalten Krieg: Zur Deuts landpolitik der Liberalen 1945– 1970 (Potsdam: Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg, 1997), 237–51. ‘The Future Tasks of the Alliance’, 13–14 December 1967, North Atlantic Council, Brussels, h ps://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_26700.htm? (last accessed 30 March 2020) (quotes). Brandt interview, Deutschlandfunk, 2 July 1967, Bulletin der Bundesregierung, 4 July 1967, 605. Brandt interview, SPD press service, 14 July 1967, Sozialdemokratischer Pressedienst 1946–1995. Memo Wickert, ‘Harmel-Studie’, 25 July 1967, box 146, B40, PA/AA. Brandt declaration on Cze oslovakia, 22 August 1968, Berliner Ausgabe 6: 160–64. Brandt speech, NATO Ministerial Council, Reykjavik, 24 June 1968, in Brandt, Wille zum Frieden, 199–205. Brandt speech, NATO Ministerial Council, Washington, 10 April 1969, ibid., 205–10. Meeting Brandt–Macovescu, 4 June 1969, AAPD 1969(1): 679 (quote). Brandt spee in honour of Mirko Tepavac, Bonn, 28 July 1969, Bulletin der Bundesregierung, 30 July 1969, 851. For more detail, see H.P. S warz, Adenauer: Der Staatsmann 1952-1967 (Stu gart: Deuts e Verlags-Anstalt, 1991), 207–22. V. Erhard, Adenauers deuts landpolitis e Geheimkonzepte während der zweiten Berlin-Krise 1958–1962 (Hamburg: Kovac, 2003). F. Eibl, Politik der Bewegung: Gerhard S röder als Außenminister 1961-1966 (Muni : Oldenbourg, 2001). B. Schoenborn, ‘Bargaining with the Bear: Chancellor Erhard’s Bid to Buy German Reunification’, Cold War History 8(1) (2008), 23–53. Johnson speech in New York City, National Conference of Editorial Writers, 7 October 1966, h ps://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-new-york-city-beforethe-national-conference-editorial-writers (last accessed 30 March 2020) (quotes). Memo Rostow to Johnson, ‘Issues and Talking Points’, 16 May 1968, box 189, Country file, National security files, Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, Austin. See also T.A. Schwartz, Lyndon Johnson and Europe: In the Shadow of Vietnam (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), 133–34, 150, 210–11. Hanhimäki, Rise and Fall, 1–24. M. Lerner, ‘“Trying to Find the Guy Who Invited Them”: Lyndon Johnson, Bridge Building, and the End of the Prague Spring’, Diplomatic History 32(1) (2008), 77–103. D.E. Selvage, ‘Transforming the Soviet Sphere of Influence? U.S.-Soviet Détente and Eastern Europe, 1969-1976’, Diplomatic History 33(4) (2009), 671–76. Meeting Kissinger–Bahr, 10 April 1965, box 15, Bundy files, NSF, Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, Austin. Kissinger to Bundy, 13 April 1965, ibid. At the time, Bundy was President Johnson’s national security advisor. He agreed with Kissinger that ‘Bahr’s remarks are disconcerting’, Bundy to Kissinger, 30 April 1965, ibid. M. Vaïsse, La grandeur: Politique étrangère du général de Gaulle 1958–1969 (Paris: Fayard, 1998), 34–40, 413–25. De Gaulle press conference, 2 March 1964, in C. de Gaulle, Discours et messages (Paris: Plon, 1970), 4: 225–31. Brandt speech to Foreign Policy Association, New York, 15 May 1964, in Brandt, Wille zum Frieden, 114. Brandt, Erinnerungen, 247–48. De Gaulle press conference, 4 February 1965, in de Gaulle, Discours et messages 4: 337– 40. Meeting Brandt-Seydoux, 19 March 1965, box 1,605, RFA, Europe 1961–70, AMAE.

Projecting East–West Reconciliation (1966–69) | 91

87. Meeting Bahr–Winckler, 25 May 1965, box 441, Depositum Bahr, AdsD (quote by French diplomat Jean-Claude Winckler). Meeting Couve de Murville-Brandt, 27 April 1967, box 30, Entretiens et messages, Secrétariat général 1945–74, AMAE (Brandt quote). 88. Memo Referat IA3, French foreign policy, 8 January 1968, year 1968, B150, PA/AA. Memos Bahr, 11 January and 7 July 1967, box 441, Depositum Bahr, AdsD. N. Vassilieva, ‘L’URSS et le développement des relations de la France avec les pays de l’Europe de l’Est (Pologne et Roumanie)’, in M. Vaïsse (ed.), De Gaulle et la Russie (Paris: CNRS, 2006), 205–11. 89. In Rapallo (northern Italy), on 16 April 1922, Germany and the Soviet Union signed a co-operation treaty that included a secret agreement on military co-operation. Germany and Russia had been opponents during World War I. 90. Telegram Seydoux, meeting with Ritzel, 25 June 1968, box 1,576, RFA, Europe 1961–70, AMAE. M. Debré, Mémoires (Paris: Albin Michel, 1993) 4: 257–58. Franco-German meetings, 27–28 September 1968, AAPD 1968(2): 1,205–9, 1,251–53. Kiesinger discussing with journalists, 12 December 1968, box 008-1, Nachlass Kiesinger, ACDP.

Chapter 4

SUMMIT MEETINGS AS ICEBREAKERS (1969–71)

( Understanding and reconciliation cannot be decreed by politicians but must mature in the hearts of people on both sides. —Willy Brandt, 19701

Kick-Starting a New Ostpolitik This chapter focuses on the first half of Willy Brandt’s chancellorship and the unfolding of his Ostpolitik. The argument here is that the role of toplevel leaders in the forming of a novel policy is particularly significant during the first stage, whereas the institutionalization of new political patterns assumes greater importance in subsequent stages. In other words, for the creation of a policy of reconciliation towards the East, Brandt’s persona was most decisive in the first two years of his chancellorship. The Bundestag elections of September 1969 allowed Brandt to form the new government in coalition with the Free Democratic Party, together holding a narrow majority over the CDU/CSU.2 The agreement of Brandt and FDP leader Walter Scheel on the fundamental need to reorganize relations with the East formed the basis of their coalition.3 Chancellor Brandt lost no time and, upon taking office on 21 October 1969, immediately embarked upon the implementation of an Ostpolitik that had been long in the making and fulfilled a series of Eastern demands. By calling the GDR a ‘state’ in his first governmental declaration, he crossed a line previously respected by all his predecessors. On 28 November 1969, he signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, thereby accepting that the Federal Republic would never possess any nuclear weapons. Negotiations with the Notes for this chapter begin on page 122.

Summit Meetings as Icebreakers (1969–71) | 93

Soviet Union on the ‘renunciation of force’, which had been suspended since July 1968, resumed in December 1969, whilst bilateral talks with Poland in view of de facto recognition of the Oder–Neiße border started in February 1970. Brandt indicated that the long-term objectives of his policy were the ‘overcoming of the division of Europe in the 1970s, the 1980s and if need be in the 1990s’ and eventually the creation of a European peace order. He pledged to advance ‘the work of reconciliation’ in full awareness that the establishment of genuine peace ‘with the people of the Soviet Union and all peoples of Eastern Europe’ would be an arduous and time-consuming task.4 Brandt’s Ostpolitik became an unprecedented success. His government developed a remarkable dynamism and in August 1970 achieved its first landmark with the Treaty of Moscow. By signing the treaty, the Soviet Union and West Germany made a commitment to respect the borders of all European states as ‘inviolable’, to adopt a policy of détente and to refrain from any use of force against each other. In December 1970, Brandt went on to sign a similar treaty with Poland, the Treaty of Warsaw. Eventually, in December 1972, West Germany signed the Basic Treaty with the GDR, normalizing relations between the two German states on the basis of equal rights, and in December 1973 the Treaty of Prague with Czechoslovakia to complete the series of Eastern Treaties. The West German initiatives were an integral part of East–West negotiations led by the United States and the Soviet Union, notably the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT), starting in November 1969 and resulting in the SALT Treaty of May 1972. From March 1970 until the successful conclusion in September 1971, the Soviet Union, the United States, the United Kingdom and France prepared a Quadripartite Agreement on Berlin to se le the legal status of the city and the transit rules between its Eastern and Western parts. At the time, each one of these many treaties represented a breakthrough in East–West relations that had seemed virtually una ainable a few years earlier.5 Even though hotly contested by the domestic opposition, Brandt’s Ostpolitik decisively improved the political atmosphere in Europe and contributed to propelling East–West confrontation towards negotiation and dialogue. In the absence of a peace treaty with Germany a er the Second World War, Brandt’s Ostverträge (Eastern Treaties) formalized Europe’s postwar borders and se led the German Question for the time being. Nevertheless, in 1969–70 the success of Ostpolitik was not a foregone conclusion and depended to a considerable extent on the Eastern readiness to comply and particularly Moscow’s change of heart in its relations with West Germany. A variety of reasons caused the Kremlin to seek dialogue with the United States and West Germany by the end of the 1960s, even if détente remained a fragile and debated policy among the Soviet leaders until

94 | Reconciliation Road

1972. In light of the EEC’s dramatic economic progress during the 1960s and the heavy burden of Soviet subsidies for the COMECON countries, for Moscow the development of trade ties with Western Europe appeared a promising tool to develop the Eastern economies. At the same time, the Soviet leadership was keen to energize domestic agriculture with Western technologies in order to satisfy basic needs and forestall unrest at home. Other reasons for détente were the costly nuclear arms race and the danger inherent in the proliferation of nuclear warheads. However, Moscow was prepared to engage in arms limitation talks with the United States only a er nuclear parity had been achieved, in order to enter such negotiations from a position of strength. Moreover, the seriousness of the crises in the Middle East and Vietnam made clear the common East–West interest in preventing any uncontrolled escalation of international conflicts.6 A er the Sino-Soviet split and bellicose border clashes between Soviet and Chinese forces in 1969, the initiation of détente with the United States also became a means for Moscow to intervene in a possible rapprochement between Washington and Beijing.7 Another and perhaps decisive reason for the Kremlin’s turn toward dialogue with the West was the personal view of Leonid Brezhnev.8 As part of the collective leadership that ousted Khrushchev, Brezhnev had become general secretary of the USSR’s Communist Party in October 1964 and gradually removed his rivals (notably Aleksandr Shelepin) from their positions until by 1968 he had established himself as the supreme Soviet leader. Several years of combat experience during the Second World War had shaped Brezhnev’s awareness of the dangers of war and later influenced his foreign policy maxim to avoid war, especially a major war between the Warsaw Pact and NATO. A decisive event in his life and a springboard for his subsequent turn towards détente was the Czechoslovak crisis of 1968. Initially Brezhnev had acted as Alexander Dubček’s mentor and endorsed the reforms in Czechoslovakia, but saw that his own career was in danger when the situation in Prague seemed to be ge ing out of Dubček’s hands. From the Kremlin’s perspective, Moscow’s very influence over Eastern Europe was on the line. Reluctantly, Brezhnev sided with the hardliners and in August 1968 gave the green light for military invasion, thereby alienating substantial parts of the Soviet and Eastern European public.9 According to the Sovietologist Vladislav Zubok, Brezhnev’s firm stance against Czechoslovakia demonstrated his resolve to protect Soviet security interests and invested him with the credentials to pursue détente with the West, particularly in the eyes of the sceptical Politburo. In close co-operation with Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko and KGB Chairman Yuri Andropov, Brezhnev began to view détente as a promising foreign policy and a road towards personal advancement. Not only did détente offer the means to undermine Western

Summit Meetings as Icebreakers (1969–71) | 95

cohesion and to obtain recognition of the GDR’s and Poland’s borders, but it also provided Brezhnev with the opportunity to fulfil ‘his dream to become a peacemaker’ and to earn the status of an international statesman of peace. Along this line of thought, the Kremlin’s subsequent overtures to Nixon and Brandt were motivated by Brezhnev’s genuine wish to promote world peace, albeit in the sense of lowering tensions through good international contacts and not with the purpose of reforming Soviet ideologies or hampering domestic arms programmes. Brezhnev’s peace ambitions eventually came to focus on the holding of a pan-European conference on security and co-operation. For this, West German support was indispensable.10

Political Leaders and Reconciliation Brezhnev’s sacrifice of the Czechoslovak reformers was undeniably a rather cynical start to his career as an international statesman of peace. The significance of Brezhnev’s persona for East–West détente nevertheless touches on a question that is directly relevant to the topic of this book: what can political leaders actually contribute to the pursuit of peace and in particular to reconciliation processes? In this respect, a few selected arguments from the academic literature may provide some useful insights for our purposes. Chapter One introduced the peace researcher John Paul Lederach’s ‘pyramid’, which is used here as the general framework with regard to the respective roles of high-level politicians, middle-range leaders and people at the grassroots level. According to leading scholars like Oliver Richmond, by integrating actors from all levels of society Lederach’s approach has been ‘one of the most important theoretical contributions to the peacebuilding debate’.11 A key conclusion by Lederach is that in reconciliation processes the parallel involvement of elites, intermediaries supporting governments and grassroots actors is vital; in other words, there should be no contradiction between top-down and bo om-up approaches. Peacebuilding concepts advocating various forms of multitrack diplomacy share a similar starting point.12 Following Lederach, the essential roles of toplevel leaders are to put an end to violence by means of peace agreements and to give public impetus to a process of transition and transformation. This la er element may take the form of a high-profile summit with the leader of the opposite side. When meeting for the first time, antagonist leaders tend to vent accumulated anger and dwell on disagreements, yet the face-to-face expression of conflicting views is of particular importance. With the passage of time, and in the process of continued contacts possi-

96 | Reconciliation Road

bly taking place on lower levels, adversaries may start to take the other’s viewpoint seriously, and confrontation then evolves into negotiation. In the later stages of such a process, the high profile and political power of the top leader may be instrumental in securing domestic support by endorsing the compromises achieved by middle-range negotiators. On the other hand, Lederach warns against limiting reconciliation actions to a very small number of top-level actors. They are usually under tremendous pressure to fulfil promises to their constituencies and allies, and o en have far less power to influence further developments (also within their own societies) than they appear to have. Thus, a er the top leaders have taken the initiative to break the ice and provide the initial impetus, further negotiations between the two sides are more likely to succeed when conducted by less exposed and less prominent actors.13 These broader conclusions are in several ways pertinent to Brandt’s Ostpolitik. His bilateral summits with the leaders of the respective Eastern countries were intended to initiate a process of transformation, and the Eastern Treaties qualify as peace treaties normalizing relations a er a long period of hostility. Chancellor Brandt’s summits with Eastern leaders do indeed demonstrate that the first face-to-face meetings may be fraught with expressions of mutual disapproval, with the possible outcome that each side eventually takes genuine account of the other’s views and engages in true negotiations. In developing his theoretical framework for peacebuilding and reconciliation, Lederach mostly referred to examples from later periods, but the characteristics of the conflicts described also apply to the antagonism Brandt encountered: Conflicting groups live in close geographic proximity. They have direct experience of violent trauma that they associate with their perceived enemies and that is sometimes tied to a history of grievance and enmity that has accumulated over generations. Paradoxically, they live as neighbours and yet are locked into long-standing cycles of hostile interaction. The conflicts are characterized by deep-rooted, intense animosity; fear; and severe stereotyping.14

Such was undeniably the case with West Germany’s Eastern relations in the 1950s and 1960s, against the background of countless atrocities commi ed during the Second World War and accumulated grievances, and the intense animosity, fear and aggressive East–West propaganda that characterized the Cold War. The Soviet Union alone had lost more than twenty million of its people in the war against Nazi Germany. Guided by the perverse racial ideology that Slavic people were Untermenschen (subhuman), the Nazi occupation of Eastern Europe had fostered a policy of enslavement and genocide far more cruel than the Nazi occupation of Western or Northern Europe.15 The Cold War interaction of the two

Summit Meetings as Icebreakers (1969–71) | 97

German regimes developed into a particularly hostile and stereotyped relationship and included East German violence at the German–German border, yet their shared history was fundamentally different because East and West Germans had not fought against each other during the Nazi era. Peace researchers widely agree that reconciliation processes necessarily include relations between governments and between peoples. Against this background, the academic literature offers a variety of examples of how political leaders may contribute to reconciliation, emphasizing their significance in the early stages. Lily Gardner Feldman highlights the courage and visionary qualities of leaders and their ability ‘to set a tone and project a message to a broader public’. Similarly, Kenneth Boulding emphasizes the potential of top leaders to set a peace dynamic in motion through ‘some dramatic public statement and act’. National leaders may also accept responsibility for past wrongs and show evidence of positive change through conciliatory gestures or apologies, provided that they find the right words at the right time. Graham Dodds argues that ‘a carefully executed apology can work wonders’.16 Brandt’s Kniefall (falling to his knees) at the Warsaw Ghe o memorial, which came to symbolize his entire visit to Poland in December 1970, is o en referred to as a sincere gesture and an unequivocal apology for Nazi crimes. Following David Cortright, in times of détente another promising way to foster peace is to take the initiative for disarmament, which corresponds to Brandt’s policy in the second phase of Ostpolitik (1971–74). Andrew Schaap describes the first step towards reconciliation as an act of ‘beginning something new’, with a result that is inherently unpredictable but may be influenced by the ‘virtuosity of performance’ of the political actors.17 A senior foreign office official in London commented on the same topic and insisted on pragmatic reasons why only the highest political leader could launch West German Ostpolitik. Brian Fall: When you are starting to do something very new, which was the case with a lot of that German diplomacy, it has to be started by somebody who is unlikely to be sacked by his boss, for the very good reason that he does not have a boss.18

According to this down-to-earth witness report on Brandt’s Ostpolitik, the role of the top-level leader was to meet his opposite number and reach agreement on the principles to be achieved, to give the right instructions to the people below and eventually to endorse the results.19 Historians have contributed insights to the question of interest here by researching the broader significance of meetings at the highest political level. David Reynolds has shown that bilateral or trilateral summits were rare until the twentieth century and flourished during a relatively short time span, from the late 1930s until the 1980s.20 Summits usually

98 | Reconciliation Road

took place among allies and only rarely between antagonists. In the first half of the twentieth century, the development of aeroplanes facilitated the practical arrangements and the mass media led to a burgeoning public interest in such summits. With the almost continuous crises of the Cold War and the potential readiness to use weapons of mass destruction, summits developed into a critical tool of diplomacy. The ability of individual political leaders to explore alternatives to war and find quick solutions under exigent circumstances became a ma er of the utmost international importance. In comparison, since the end of the Cold War the immediate threat represented by nuclear weapons has abated (but not disappeared), communications technologies have dramatically changed and opened new channels of dialogue and information, and international problems are usually addressed by multilateral fora rather than bilateral summits. Even if individual leaders and their meetings were particularly significant during the Cold War, summits were not necessarily successful. Pride, stubbornness or prejudice could impair a leader’s ability to make a dispassionate judgement, but even cordial relations at the top could hamper a politician’s objectivity in defending the interests of his or her own nation or alliance.21 In line with this argument, in the early 1970s the regular personal contacts of Willy Brandt and Egon Bahr with Eastern leaders provoked fears among the Western allies that the Germans might be tempted to relinquish Western interests, as a former high-ranking official of the French Foreign Ministry recalled.22 Studies of summits also distinguish between their different types – such as one-off or serial, personal or plenary summits – and emphasize that the three stages of preparation, negotiation and implementation of a meeting involve far more people than just the top leaders.23 While these academic findings provide a useful background for the analysis of Brandt’s pioneering summits with Eastern leaders, the events now described may also illustrate that launching a reconciliation process is not just about applying ingenious concepts but depends very much on human interaction. Without credibility and authenticity of the leading figures and real exchange between the individuals involved, reconciliation may not ensue. The first two summits addressed here are Brandt’s meetings with East German Prime Minister Willi Stoph in March and May 1970, which involved East–West contacts not only at the highest, but also at the subordinate and grassroots levels. The relationship between West and East Germany was special in several ways and at the same time an integral part of Brandt’s policy of reconciliation with the East. On the one hand, the transformation of German– German relations was not between the perpetrators and victims of Nazi aggression and in this sense was a case apart. The projected future ‘we’

Summit Meetings as Icebreakers (1969–71) | 99

entailed unification – at least from Brandt’s and Bahr’s perspective – and hence was built on different premises than the ‘we’ imagined with other Eastern European states. On the other hand, the improvement of German– German relations and especially West German recognition of the GDR as a state was a crucial Eastern European precondition for accepting closer relations with the FRG. This precondition was related to the traumatic Eastern experience of the Nazi occupation, which found expression in fear of a united and more powerful Germany. Furthermore, from Brandt’s viewpoint the intended reconciliation with the Eastern victims of Nazi violence was inextricably linked to the transformation of the East–West conflict, even to East–West reconciliation in the long term. If looking at the Cold War as a struggle between East and West over the future of Germany, at the time a common perspective, Brandt’s novel approach to transforming relations with East Germany may actually qualify as a decisive element for the outcome of his entire Ostpolitik.

Arguing in Erfurt When Chancellor Brandt took office in October 1969 and declared his intention to seek ‘peace in the fullest sense of the word with the peoples of the Soviet Union and all the peoples of the European East’, the prospects for improving relations with East Germany seemed rather remote. In mid-December Bahr noted that Moscow and other Eastern capitals had responded ‘objectively’ to Bonn’s new course, while the reaction of East Berlin had been far from constructive.24 The East German leadership perceived Brandt’s Ostpolitik as ‘a change of tactic’ in comba ing socialism by ‘infiltrating’ the GDR yet was divided over how to react to the impending Western offensive.25 Only in late December and a er intense consultations with the Kremlin did Walter Ulbricht respond to Brandt’s public proposal to start ‘mutual and non-discriminatory negotiations’ between the two German governments. Ulbricht sent a le er and dra treaty on East–West German relations to FRG President Gustav Heinemann, calling for full recognition of the GDR according to international law – knowing well that Brandt could not comply with this maximalist demand before negotiations had even begun. Heinemann passed on Ulbricht’s request to Brandt and a few weeks later face-to-face meetings were arranged between Gerhard Schüßler and Ulrich Sahm, representing respectively the GDR’s prime minister’s office and the West German Chancellery. In early March 1970, the two men met several times with a view to preparing a summit between Brandt and East German Prime Minister Willi Stoph and developed a well-functioning working relationship. The first idea of

100 | Reconciliation Road

meeting in East Berlin led to disagreements over the city’s political status, not least because Brandt would travel through West Berlin.26 Therea er both sides agreed on Erfurt in Thuringia as a meeting place, but the East German leadership saw no possible topic for negotiation and remained reluctant. Eventually Moscow leaned on the East Germans and insisted that ‘the world should not be allowed to garner the impression that the GDR is turning down talks’. Egon Bahr, who was lobbying in the corridors of the Kremlin for a considerable part of the year, informed Brandt on 12 March that the Soviets were ‘forcing’ Stoph to hold the Erfurt meeting and estimated that Moscow expected peace from Bonn’s side in return.27 In West Germany the prospect of the first-ever meeting of East and West German leaders was major news. Brandt was at pains to explain to the public that he did not expect any concrete result and that he a ached importance to the mere fact of a meeting taking place. He hoped that Erfurt would be the beginning of a German–German dialogue but deemed the meeting necessary even if nothing came of it. Brandt needed to demonstrate his readiness for talks with the East German government to ensure the credibility of his Ostpolitik but he also went to Erfurt ‘in the interests of the German people finding their way back to one another’.28 According to Bahr, for the long-term reunification of Germany it was indeed vital ‘to forestall any further dri ing apart of the German people’ at the grassroots level. When dra ing the foreign policy programme for Brandt’s chancellorship in autumn 1969, Bahr also outlined the objective of a framework contract (Rahmenvertrag) with the GDR, which would institutionally bring together the two parts of Germany on the basis of equality. The underlying idea was to accept the status quo for the time being in order to change it in the long run. Against this background, Brandt’s advisors nurtured more ambitious goals for the Erfurt meeting than the chancellor admi ed. They perceived the German–German summit as an opportunity to initiate an exchange on mutual respect, to improve communications and trade, and to create working groups on ideological differences. Ultimately, they pursued the goal of establishing common institutions and normalizing FRG–GDR relations on a legal basis.29 Yet Brandt’s cautious stance in public proved to be well founded. No real dialogue took place in Erfurt and the summit led to a clash of opinions rather than genuine negotiations. The Erfurt meeting lasted only one day, from 9:30 am until 22:30 pm on 19 March 1970, however it was filled with East–West interaction at different levels. At lunchtime the two large delegations ate together and engaged in small talk. About 400 journalists were present in Erfurt, arriving from East and West and mingling at the occasion. Forty-six Western journalists accompanied Brandt on his special train to Erfurt and a er crossing the border witnessed numerous East Germans gathering spontaneously

Summit Meetings as Icebreakers (1969–71) | 101

along the railway track, most of them waving, some cautiously and some enthusiastically. Individual people brandished tablecloths from their windows, at a factory the entire workforce assembled to express their sympathy with the leader of the ‘class enemy’. Overwhelmed by emotion, Brandt stood at the window and occasionally waved back. Much to the distress of the East German authorities, the spontaneous expression of support for Brandt continued a er Stoph’s official welcome at Erfurt station. An East German crowd of over a thousand people burst through the barriers and flooded the square of the conference venue, chanting ‘Willy Brandt to the window’. Brandt hesitated, then briefly appeared at the hotel window, looked down over the ‘excited and hopeful people’ and made a pacifying gesture.30 His staff watched the scene with tears in their eyes, as did people around the globe following the event on television. For Brandt, the moment was a ‘strong human experience’ that encouraged him to persevere in his policy of East–West contact; he later described 19 March 1970 as the most emotionally charged day of his whole life. Yet many East Germans turning out in support of Brandt suffered dire consequences and were arrested by the Stasi (internal security), 107 on the very day and many more following their identification through photographs.31 The official meeting took place in the form of a plenary summit with some twenty people a ending and was characterized by lengthy monologues by the two leaders. Both sides reiterated the policy of their respective governments and plainly stated their disagreement on almost every issue. Stoph described the evolution of East Germany into a modern socialist state as an inherently peaceful development contributing to European stability, whereas West Germany had inherited Hitler’s aggressive imperialism and through its rearmament and NATO membership was alone responsible for the division of Germany. The construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 had been ‘an act of humanity’ to safeguard European peace and the interests of East German workers. Moreover, Stoph criticized Brandt’s public references to the ‘unity of the nation’ as duplicitous and the claim of a ‘special nature’ in the relation between the two German states as patronizing and ‘discriminatory’. In sum, Stoph dismissed Brandt’s policy as an intervention in East German sovereignty and demanded full recognition of the GDR according to international law as a first step; otherwise there would be no basis for any kind of negotiation.32 For his part, Brandt depicted West Germany as being loyal to the Western military alliance, much like the GDR to the Eastern alliance. He insisted on the responsibility of the Four Powers for Berlin and deplored the East German construction of walls and fortifications along the German–German border. He regarded the claim to non-interference as not applicable to East–West German relations and argued instead that in-depth negotiations were indispensable to

102 | Reconciliation Road

alleviate the tensions and reach non-discriminatory positions. Brandt and Stoph also met for a one-to-one meeting in the evening, where the tone of the conversation was slightly more conciliatory. Stoph expressed interest in developing trade relations and facilitating German–German traffic, but the only concrete result of the day remained the agreement to meet again two months later, in the West German town of Kassel. In the end, both Brandt and Stoph admi ed that the summit had been a useful opportunity ‘to get a smell of each other’.33 With the face-to-face expression of accumulated discord, the Erfurt meeting corresponded to the icebreaking first step referred to in reconciliation studies (always mindful that reconciliation does not necessarily ensue). Brandt pursued the goal of inner reconciliation of East and West German people and viewed Erfurt in a context of overcoming the division of Europe and achieving ‘reconciliation with the states of the East’ in the long term.34 The conciliatory gestures of East Germans during Brandt’s visit to Erfurt indicated that the reconciliation of East and West Germans might actually be a feasible option for the future, at least at the grassroots level. But in relations with the government of the GDR, Brandt was dealing with a paradox and a seemingly irreconcilable contradiction. On the one hand, he faced the necessity of formally recognizing the East German regime, but on the other hand, a key objective of his entire Ostpolitik was to prepare the ground for German unity – on the initial assumption that the East German regime would eventually cease to exist. This dilemma was not only at the root of GDR–FRG disagreements, but also generated the omnipresent tension in the negotiations between Bonn and Moscow. As Bahr put it: ‘The main objective of Soviet policy in Europe is to legalize the status quo. The main objective of our policy is to overcome the status quo. This is a genuine mismatch of interests.’35 The dilemma of recognition is also relevant for reconciliation processes in general. A policy of not recognizing an antagonist – as West Germany had refused to recognize East Germany since the Second World War – constitutes a form of oppression, as it denigrates and damages the other’s identity.36 In such a situation, the denigrated party tends to forge a counteridentity in defiance of the adversary. Indeed, the self-image of the East German State was inherently linked to its opposition to West Germany, as exemplified by Stoph’s description of the GDR as a peaceful workers’ state at the antipode of imperialist and Nazi-ridden West Germany. While it may be assumed that identity is influenced by both endogenous and exogenous factors, an identity constructed in direct opposition to the other will naturally seek recognition of its otherness. In such a context especially, the act of recognition will reinforce the difference between self and other. Hence, recognition is both a necessary step towards reconciliation and an

Summit Meetings as Icebreakers (1969–71) | 103

obstacle to its achievement. When antagonists come together to negotiate recognition they engage in a dialectic process, during which both sides learn about the other’s way of life and presumably discover aspects worthy of respect. Such a process, in Andrew Schaap’s words, ‘opens the way to a shared horizon’ and positively transforms the initial perception of the other as ‘a transgressor of our own values’ towards understanding the other on his own terms.37 At the same time, recognition threatens to limit the terms of the relationship, to perpetuate differences and to consolidate exactly those aspects of identity that reconciliation might transform. Another theoretical observation pertinent to Brandt’s meetings with Stoph is that the initiation of reconciliation is by nature a radical act of breaking with past policies and embarking on something entirely new. This act of constitution requires holding together ostensibly incompatible and irreconcilable elements.38 Acutely aware of the seemingly irreconcilable aspects in his policy approach, in October 1969 Brandt described the relations with the GDR in these terms: Recognition of the GDR according to international law by the federal government cannot be considered. Even if there exist two states in Germany, they are not foreign countries to each other; their relations with each other can only be of a special kind.39

This statement was deliberately ambiguous. Brandt’s refusal to recognize the GDR in terms of international law followed closely on Bahr’s recommendation postulating that the recognition of the GDR by the international community was inevitable, but should for the moment be opposed and used as leverage to bring the East Germans to the negotiation table.40 At the subsequent meeting in Kassel, Brandt already intended to propose membership of both German states in international organizations as an objective for the future, at the end of negotiations on a long list of topics. His advisors dra ed this list, the ‘twenty points of Kassel’, in preparation for the second meeting with Stoph. A third summit seemed desirable, but Brandt’s staff focused primarily on developing continuous contacts at subordinate levels and se ing up ‘permanent offices’ in Bonn and East Berlin.41 Two days a er Erfurt, and to a selected audience, Brandt conceded the limited usefulness of holding further East–West German summits beyond Kassel. He described the talks with Stoph as ‘a very tedious business’ and estimated that progress in German–German relations might be achieved less obviously but more successfully at lower levels.42 The second summit discussion in Kassel, on 21 May 1970, did indeed entail more ‘tedious business’. Stoph arrived at the meeting with a predetermined agenda not to move in any way and to propose a ‘pause for

104 | Reconciliation Road

reflection’ (Denkpause) in order to break off contacts at the end of the day. The designated future leader of the GDR, Erich Honecker, in an innergovernmental confrontation had prevailed over Walter Ulbricht who wished to approach Brandt more actively.43 Honecker’s unrelenting stance towards West Germany also corresponded to Brezhnev’s resolve to keep the Kremlin’s finger on the pulse of Western policy. Hence, Stoph’s contributions to the Kassel summit mostly consisted of pre-formulated statements criticizing Brandt’s policy. In great detail and quoting various Western documents, Stoph accused the FRG of systematically discriminating against the GDR and of permi ing fascist agitation against its representatives. He concluded from Brandt’s refusal to fully recognize the East German State that Bonn was pursuing cunning and aggressive objectives. According to Stoph, Brandt’s opening to the East was governed by destructive ambitions and was part of NATO’s a empt to infiltrate the community of socialist states.44 While Brandt did deny some of the general accusations, he also declared that his government would take Stoph’s criticism seriously and investigate the specific examples of discrimination mentioned. In light of the theoretical considerations outlined above, it is noteworthy that Brandt actually listened to what Stoph said despite the la er’s polemical tone. Brandt’s a empt to steer the discussion towards topics of common interest and points of contact likewise coincided with a broader agenda of reconciliation. He referred to the parties’ common history and language, the shared destiny of having been divided because of the war initiated by Nazi Germany and the obligation of both sides to prevent another war breaking out on German territories. Finally, he outlined the ‘twenty points of Kassel’ and proposed to start negotiations on issues such as human rights, respect for sovereignty, the rights of the Four Powers and practical bilateral co-operation – for instance on trade, traffic and culture – in order to prepare a German–German treaty and the accession of both German states to international organizations. Concluding the plenary meeting, Stoph insisted that West Germany was not yet ready to fully recognize the GDR and therefore needed a pause for reflection.45 In his private talks with Brandt he was clearly more amenable and expressed open appreciation of German–German trade arrangements, which actually allowed the GDR to participate indirectly, through West Germany, in the EEC’s common market.46 Stoph proposed that the East and West German ministries in charge of trade, traffic and post should develop contacts to resolve the issues raised by Brandt. Both sides agreed on the usefulness of telephone and telex lines ‘between our two houses’. When Brandt suggested that the political contacts between Gerhard Schüßler and Ulrich Sahm could be extended to a higher level, for instance to Michael Kohl and Horst Ehmke, Stoph did not reject the idea out of hand but remained

Summit Meetings as Icebreakers (1969–71) | 105

non-commi al. Thus, the day ended with no communiqué and no plan to meet again.47 As in Erfurt, the newsworthy events did not only take place inside the conference rooms of Kassel. Some 2,000 le -wing and right-wing demonstrators had swarmed into town before the summit and protested by flying banners with slogans directed against both Stoph and Brandt. The local police, who had orders to allow demonstrations, were unable in the morning to prevent the demonstrators from a acking the limousine driving the two leaders on their way to the conference venue. As the summit discussions were about to start, three young men (sons of East German fugitives) entered the premises with false press cards and tore down the GDR flag. The offended East German delegation expressed their indignation both to the organizers and the international press, which was again present in large numbers. The demonstrators le in the a ernoon and the residents of Kassel were more welcoming when their guests went to a wreath-laying ceremony honouring the victims of fascism. Both Stoph and Brandt had been involved in resistance activities against the Nazi regime a er 1933 and during the ceremony earnestly contemplated each other’s merits. Stoph had finally found ‘a piece of common ground’ (ein Stück Gemeinsamkeit) with Brandt.48 An analysis of the summits in Erfurt and Kassel focusing exclusively on top-level politics and immediate results might lead to disappointing conclusions, as Brandt himself conceded. The opposition leader in the Bundestag, Rainer Barzel, declared in late May 1970 that Brandt’s policy of East–West dialogue had already reached an impasse and provoked a hardening of a itudes instead of the desired change of heart in the GDR. Yet what really ma ered to Brandt was the longer-term objective of moving ‘from confrontation to dialogue and to co-operation’ with the East.49 In relations with the GDR, he had anticipated from the outset that ‘a first stage’ of improvement would be reached only over time and, as he had said in Kassel, a er the icebreaking summits he hoped to establish regular political contacts on middle-range levels. If viewed as part of a longer process, the confrontational meetings in Erfurt and Kassel did eventually lead to genuine and sustained negotiations between the two German states. Following a six-month ‘pause for reflection’, on 27 November 1970 the State Secretaries Michael Kohl and Egon Bahr embarked on a series of face-to-face negotiations and thereupon the East–West German exchange moved from the top to intermediate levels.50 Brandt and Stoph never met again. The summits in Erfurt and Kassel also created the opportunity for direct East–West contacts at the grassroots level. Besides the numerous undocumented encounters involving journalists and technical personnel,

106 | Reconciliation Road

both Stoph and Brandt interacted with the local population through eye contact and the la er also with gestures. Brandt later reported that many East Germans had sent him ‘moving le ers’ a er the summits and he surmised that the public events in Erfurt and Kassel had reawakened a ‘dormant feeling of solidarity’ among West and East Germans.51 The long-term effect of the two German–German summits on such grassroots feelings of solidarity cannot be specified, but the fact that these continued until the end of the Cold War proved instrumental in bringing about German unity in 1990, much as Brandt and Bahr had hoped twenty years earlier. The East German media did not tone down their strident Cold War language in the wake of Erfurt or Kassel. The authoritative newspaper Neues Deutschland, which largely controlled the printed information available to East Germans, concluded that Bonn was ‘imperialistic’ and Brandt was circumventing international law. In West Germany, some conservativeoriented newspapers criticized Brandt for having received too li le and given too much, but the majority of journalists tended to evaluate his meetings with Stoph as a positive reorientation towards German–German rapprochement. Some Western media also detected a more lenient tone in Brandt’s language. While he had described the East German leadership as ‘extremely stubborn’ in early 1970, a er Kassel he referred to Stoph as a ‘calm and well-informed man’.52 Even if the two leaders did not establish any personal trust with one another, the summits in Erfurt and Kassel initiated a process of German–German negotiations in the years to come.

Kneeling in Warsaw On the a ernoon of 6 December 1970, Willy Brandt landed in Warsaw for the first-ever state visit of a West German Chancellor to Poland. The purpose of his visit was to normalize bilateral relations by signing the Treaty of Warsaw, which had been in preparation for ten months by State Secretary Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz and Foreign Minister Walter Scheel on the German side and Deputy Foreign Minister Józef Winiewicz on the Polish side. Yet, upon the German chancellor’s arrival, the significance of the treaty almost vanished behind the memories of the atrocities perpetrated by Germans during the Nazi occupation of Poland from 1939–45. Some six million Poles had been murdered and almost the entire Jewish population exterminated – men, women and children. At Brandt’s welcome with military ceremonial, the faces of the Poles ‘betrayed violent agitation when the German national anthem was played’.53 Brandt had come to Warsaw inwardly resolved to accept ‘the bill’ for the ‘unspeakable crimes’ of Hitler’s Germany and, if possible, to contribute to the ‘reconciliation’ of the Polish

Summit Meetings as Icebreakers (1969–71) | 107

and German peoples, as he had wri en to Polish Prime Minister Józef Cyrankiewicz several months earlier. As an earlier address to a Jewish audience indicates, Brandt was acutely aware that as a German leader he represented the perpetrators of Nazi crimes and depended on the victims’ side for the progress of any reconciliation process.54 Nevertheless, what he could do was to set the scene for an eventual reconciliation. In line with this objective, the two elements of commemorating the past and projecting a new relationship of amity for the future marked his speeches and actions during the three-day visit to Warsaw. The programme included two wreath-laying ceremonies on the grey morning of 7 December. At the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Brandt wrote an inscription into the visitors’ book to commemorate the victims of the Second World War. The second ceremony was scheduled to be held at the memorial to the Jews who had perished in the Warsaw Ghe o. This was to become a defining moment of Brandt’s Ostpolitik. Some three or four hundred people gathered at the memorial, which was guarded by two Polish soldiers. No military ceremony took place, no national anthem was played. Film footage shows Brandt approaching the memorial with solemn countenance, silent and pensive, ascending the few steps to the

FIGURE 4.1. Chancellor Brandt’s Kniefall at the Warsaw Ghe o memorial, 7 December 1970. © Bundesregierung / Engelbert Reineke.

108 | Reconciliation Road

wreath and adjusting the ribbon, then stepping slightly back – and falling to his knees. There he remained for about half a minute with his knees on the wet granite, hands together in front of his lower body; head held up and eyes open, surrounded on three sides by photographers and their clicking cameras. He then rose to his feet and walked away as the crowd parted at his approach, with his gaze fixed on the horizon.55 At the time, a foreign politician going down on his knees during an official state visit seemed unthinkable, even more so the leader of a NATO country on the territory of the Warsaw Pact. A few days later Brandt expressed in an interview that he had wanted to ‘apologize in the name of our people for a millionfold crime commi ed in the defiled name of Germany’. In his memoirs he explained that he had contemplated earlier in the morning how best to portray the special nature of the ceremony at the Ghe o memorial. ‘Oppressed by memories of Germany’s recent history, I simply did what people do when words fail.’ His emotional gesture surprised his own delegation and ‘disconcerted’ the Polish hosts, who said nothing about it all day. Premier Cyrankiewicz, himself a survivor of Auschwitz, took Brandt by the arm the next morning and told him that many people had been profoundly touched by the gesture, among them the Premier’s wife, who had wept copiously upon returning home.56 An important element of the Kniefall and its perception was that Brandt had been an activist against Nazism from a young age, bore no personal guilt and this was common knowledge at the time. Thus, the emotional and political impact of the gesture was directly related to Brandt’s persona. His gesture was in line with Jaspers’ maxim of political liability and Brandt’s own conviction that the Germans needed to take responsibility and accept the political consequences for Nazi war crimes. Ever since December 1970, the gesture has been analysed and framed in innumerable ways by journalists, politicians and scholars. Brandt’s personal intentions and motivations for kneeling are only to some extent relevant for the analysis, because actors in reconciliation processes rely on others to interpret the meaning that their actions express. In this sense, the ‘actor never fully understands what he is doing’.57 The Polish newspapers covered Brandt’s meetings with Gomułka and Cyrankiewicz in much greater detail than the Kniefall. Brandt had deliberately chosen to kneel at the Ghe o memorial, not at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, knowing full well that the communist regime would have preferred the la er option.58 The Polish leadership was actually involved in an anti-Semitic campaign launched by Politburo member Mieczysław Moczar, who aggressively promoted the public commemoration of Polish – not Jewish – suffering at the hands of Nazi Germany.59 As a result of censorship, with the exception of the Yiddish journal Folksztyme, the

Summit Meetings as Icebreakers (1969–71) | 109

Polish newspapers printing a small photo of the Kniefall only showed a semi-frontal view of the scene not including the actual memorial. Thus, Brandt appeared to be kneeling in front of a Polish soldier. The Polish Foreign Ministry unofficially inquired about the exact purpose of the gesture and was informed by the West German trade mission that the Ghe o memorial had been conceived of as a reminder of Auschwitz. Despite the reluctant reactions on the part of the Polish government, the Kniefall had a profound effect on the people present on site. A Polish witness and former insurgent against the Nazis, who had hated all things German, reportedly commented: ‘When I saw Willy Brandt on his knees at the Warsaw Ghe o memorial, at that moment I could feel: there is no more hatred le in me.’60 Importantly for the broader effect of the Kniefall, Polish television showed film footage of Brandt walking up to the monument, rearranging the ribbons of the wreath and falling to his knees. This broadcast was part of the official reports on the ongoing German–Polish summit. Krzysztof Gawęda, at the time a teenage schoolboy in Lublin (Eastern Poland), recalls that seeing Brandt’s Kniefall on television made a big emotional impression on him. Until then, all he had heard about West Germans was that they were ‘Nazis and aggressive imperialists’ still laying claim to the lands of Western Poland. He understood Brandt’s kneeling as ‘something atypical’ and incongruous with such reports.61 Gawęda’s confusion was not an isolated experience. As Adam Krzemiński observed, for young Poles ‘who were pre y much fed up with the anti-German complexes’ of the older generations, the gesture inspired an interest to find out about the Germans for themselves. Even if Polish reports omi ed that Brandt had knelt at a memorial for Jewish victims, the Kniefall nevertheless acknowledged the immense suffering caused by the Nazis and also imparted an image of German leadership that contrasted sharply with the arrogance the Poles had experienced all too o en in their history. A er the Warsaw summit of December 1970, the Polish media tended to count Brandt among the ‘good Germans’ and friends of Poland. Overall, the image of the kneeling German chancellor found its way into the collective memory of the Polish people, even in remote parts of the country. The Polish government and society eventually acknowledged Brandt’s gesture a er the end of the Cold War and recent Polish accounts leave li le doubt about its decisive moral role in opening the road towards Polish-German reconciliation. Thus, in Poland the Kniefall proved highly significant also in the longer term.62 In December 1970 the photo of Brandt’s gesture made the front pages in many parts of the world. Western media showed the most avid interest in the kneeling chancellor but only few commented on the photo. Among them, The Washington Post highlighted the positive symbolism

110 | Reconciliation Road

of the gesture, Le Figaro (France) applauded Brandt’s courage and contribution to reconciliation, and The Daily Telegraph (UK) wrote that the German chancellor in impressive manner had made a public apology for Nazi war crimes.63 In West Germany, the photo of the Kniefall was much publicized in the newspapers but journalists and the general public hesitated to comment or venture any interpretation of the gesture. An opinion poll in mid-December revealed that forty-eight per cent of West Germans actually deemed Brandt’s Kniefall ‘exaggerated’ and only forty-one per cent ‘appropriate’ while eleven per cent expressed no opinion. However, importantly for the Polish side, no public debate diminishing the value of Brandt’s apology ensued in West Germany.64 Many West Germans also perceived Brandt’s kneeling as a religious act and were reminded of the religious issues dividing Protestants and Catholics. Hermann Kusterer, a former member of Brandt’s staff, estimated that the contemporary West Germans understood the Kniefall as ‘some kind of confession and at the same time a plea for absolution’.65 The fact that Brandt was Lutheran but not particularly religious ma ered li le in this context. The sociologist Christoph Schneider argued that the religious symbolism of Brandt’s gesture, to which West German and US media already referred in 1970–71, was inflated in Western public perception over the subsequent decades and assumed mythical proportions. In the process, Brandt was iconized as ‘the crucified chancellor’ taking the sins of all Germans upon himself, a sort of ‘Jesus of the Cold War’ who sacrificed himself to overcome the Iron Curtain and reconcile the divided parties.66 Taking a different perspective, Judith Renner interpreted the Kniefall and the German bishops’ earlier action as the origin of a ritualization of public apology in German–Polish relations, which developed in the 1990s.67 An important criticism of Brandt’s Kniefall relates to the focus of a ention on the kneeling chancellor and the changing German identity rather than the victims of Nazi crimes. In contrast to Karl Jaspers, in the 1960s Hannah Arendt warned against public acknowledgement of guilt in connection with Nazi atrocities, because the expression of guilt can ‘lead to a phony sentimentality in which all real issues are obscured’. Following Arendt, the claim ‘We are all guilty’ evokes solidarity with the wrongdoers instead of focusing on the crimes commi ed; ‘Where all are guilty, nobody is’. She was generally sceptical of the public expression of emotions and argued that the nature of politics was to corrupt moral sentiment. In other words, when feelings of guilt become a political virtue, these sentiments may develop a dynamic of their own and digress from the original concern. Scholars like George Kateb and Andrew Schaap have since relativized Arendt’s rather strict argument and pointed out that without

Summit Meetings as Icebreakers (1969–71) | 111

the experience of emotion, common people could hardly be motivated to engage in the demanding process of reconciliation.68 Brandt was adept at dealing with public emotion and of course he was well aware that photographers were all around him as he fell to his knees. This said, witnesses at the time perceived it as a sincere expression of his sentiment and not even his domestic opponents accused him of an outright calculated gesture. Moreover, Brandt did this only once. He had chosen the moment well and did not go down on his knees at other memorials, thereby demonstrating a well-developed instinct. In today’s academic literature, Brandt’s kneeling is usually described favourably and o en portrayed as model in contrast to Konrad Adenauer’s reticence or unsuccessful Japanese efforts to apologize for war crimes. In the context here the Kniefall deserves special a ention as it represents Brandt’s most celebrated effort to come to terms with the Nazi past and to give public impetus to transforming German–Polish relations beyond the governmental level. With reference to Lederach’s pyramid, only the highest political leader could perform such a dramatic public act. Yet at the time it was perceived as just one element happening during Brandt’s state visit to Poland. Other important aspects of the visit included the normalization of political relations between Bonn and Warsaw, the German goal of institutionalizing contacts on lower levels and – for the Polish hosts – the formal recognition of borders and payment of war indemnities by West Germany. The main official event of the summit was the ceremony of signing the ‘Treaty Between the Federal Republic of Germany and Poland Concerning the Basis for Normalizing Their Mutual Relations’ (summarized as the Treaty of Warsaw), on the a ernoon of 7 December 1970. Article I of the treaty stated the agreement of both countries that the Oder–Neiße line constituted the Western border of Poland and reaffirmed ‘the inviolability of their existing frontiers’, with special emphasis that ‘no territorial claim whatsoever’ would be made in the future. Further articles stipulated that both parties se le their disputes peacefully and ‘refrain from any threat or use of force’, and that they develop their economic, scientific, technological and cultural co-operation. The introductory paragraphs of the treaty referred to the ‘great suffering’ inflicted on Poland during the Second World War, the desire to establish ‘durable foundations for peaceful coexistence’ and to strengthen peace in Europe.69 Chancellor Brandt’s statements on 6–8 December, in public as well as in governmental meetings, expressed a strong focus on the reconciliation aspect of the treaty. In two press conferences he described the German–Polish summit as a common endeavour to ‘organise the a ermath of the war’ and ‘to overcome the past in order to create a peaceful future’. He described the treaty as a means to bring the Polish and German people together, so that the young would not be

112 | Reconciliation Road

fe ered by the ‘legacy of a criminal policy’. In the governmental meetings with Cyrankiewicz and Gomułka, Brandt tried to persuade his hosts to create a Polish–German youth foundation and institutionalized exchange, emulating the example of Franco–German reconciliation.70 A er the ceremonial signing of the treaty, he addressed his fellow West Germans on television and radio to explain that the loss of former German territories to Poland was a direct consequence of criminal acts commi ed by Nazi Germany. He continued: We cannot forget that a er 1939 the Polish people suffered the worst that they have had to endure in their history. This injustice has not been without consequences … Names like Auschwitz will haunt both our nations for a long time to come, reminding them that hell on earth is possible … Approval of this treaty, of reconciliation and peace, means the acceptance of German history as a whole … We must focus our gaze on the future and acknowledge morality to be a political force. We must break the chains of injustice.71

While the Polish hosts shared Brandt’s interpretation of the treaty as a new beginning and bridge between Poland and West Germany, their statements also expressed some reservations. Premier Cyrankiewicz clearly appreciated Brandt’s approach of coming to terms with the Nazi past and responded with the pledge to break the ‘tragic cycle of war, misery and injustice which had so far bedevilled the history of German– Polish relations’, but remained non-commi al on practical German proposals such as institutionalized youth exchanges. Władysław Gomułka, the party secretary and highest political leader of Poland, in his exchange with Brandt engaged in long monologues rather than dialogue. His position was reserved but not confrontational as had been Stoph’s in Erfurt and Kassel.72 For Gomułka, by far the most important aspect of the Warsaw summit was Bonn’s formal recognition of Poland’s western border, which he had adamantly demanded since the 1950s. The success of obtaining this recognition was somewhat dimmed by the fact that the inviolability of European borders – and specifically of the Oder–Neiße line – had already been established in August 1970 with the Treaty of Moscow between the Soviet Union and West Germany. Gomułka would have preferred to achieve the feat by his own efforts rather than receiving it as a Soviet favour, yet he had to defer to the leading power.73 Relations between the member states of the Warsaw Pact played a considerable role in shaping the Eastern reactions to Brandt’s Ostpolitik. As Douglas Selvage has argued, Gomułka’s very decision to seek direct negotiations with West Germany resulted from developments inside the Warsaw Pact in 1968–69.74 First, because Moscow se led on a plan to intensify contacts with West Germany and discuss (border) issues relevant to Poland,

Summit Meetings as Icebreakers (1969–71) | 113

Gomułka chose to have direct negotiations with Bonn rather than become a bystander. Second, the intensification of trade relations between the two German states raised Gomułka’s fears that the GDR might eventually succumb to the temptations of German unification. In order to take some control and counter such ominous perspectives, in May 1969 he publicly declared his readiness to enter into negotiations with Bonn on the recognition of the Oder–Neiße border. In December 1970, the German–Polish treaty eventually allayed Gomułka’s anxiety on the border issue, but not completely.75 Later developments did indeed show that in the German parliament considerable resistance to recognizing the finality of Polish borders persisted. Brandt had travelled to Poland with an even more extensive delegation than to the Erfurt summit earlier in the year. He had carefully selected the people accompanying him to the historical event in Warsaw and wished to include men and women representing different sections of public life. Not all accepted the invitation. The prominent journalist Marion Dönhoff, born near Königsberg (now Kaliningrad), declined because of the ‘moral tour de force’ her presence in Warsaw would require. Bishop Hermann Dietzfelbinger and Cardinal Julius Döpfner, representing respectively the Lutheran and Roman Catholic churches in West Germany, preferred not to endorse the politically controversial recognition of Polish borders. And yet, together with their Polish counterparts, the West German churches had made pioneering contributions to the cause of Polish–German reconciliation. Already in October 1960 Döpfner had publicly deplored Chancellor Adenauer’s confrontational stance towards Poland and instead endeavoured to initiate reconciliation. In late 1965 the common declaration of the Polish and German churches ‘We forgive, and we ask for forgiveness’ (initiated by the Polish side) a racted public a ention but at the time proved incapable of forging new pa erns in German–Polish relations.76 Despite notable absences, Brandt’s Warsaw delegation engaged in a variety of exchanges with the Polish hosts. Representatives of West German youth organizations met with their Polish counterparts, industrial leaders like Berthold Beitz and Janusz Hrynkiewicz discussed the implementation of the far-reaching economic agreement, which the two countries had signed on 15 October 1970. Exchanges of students and scientists were envisaged. The popular West German authors Günter Grass and Siegfried Lenz, both born on former German territories lost to Poland, commented on the proceedings with sharp pens. The foreign ministers Scheel and Jędrychowski made a first effort to discuss the consequences of the border recognition and lower-ranking officials mingled individually. Egon Bahr and his opposite number, Zenon Kliszko, toured the old town and se led in a local pub. Later on, Cyrankiewiecz raised Adam Rapacki’s proposal to

114 | Reconciliation Road

denuclearize parts of Central Europe and eagerly listened to Bahr’s similar ideas on European security.77 Brandt repeatedly emphasized that the Treaty of Warsaw was meant to be the beginning of a long process and hoped for an intensification of relations a er the icebreaking summit. The Warsaw negotiations of 6–8 December 1970 le many important questions open, not least the fate and legal status of German expellees and ethnic Germans living in Poland, and the complex issue of German compensation for Nazi war crimes. Brandt was in a relatively weak position at home with regard to compensatory payments and feared that an official agreement might ‘provoke distasteful arguments’ in public fora. As Poland had formally renounced reparations in 1953, Gomułka was toying with the idea of se ling for substantial West German credits but wished to further explore the issue at a later date.78 However, there was not to be any such occasion for Gomułka. Just ten days a er the Warsaw summit an increase in domestic food prices led to strikes and demonstrations against the Polish government. On 20 December 1970 Gomułka lost all his political positions to Edward Gierek, who had not been directly involved in the negotiations with West Germany. The intended intensification of Bonn–Warsaw relations suffered a setback from this political change as the Polish side opted for a passive approach waiting for the ratification of the treaty by the Bundestag, which took place only in May 1972. Thus, contrary to Brandt’s hopes, the summit of 6–8 December 1970 did not lead directly to a transformation in German– Polish relations.79

Hesitating with Prague, Progressing in Moscow Ten days a er the Warsaw summit, on 17 December 1970, West Germany and Czechoslovakia signed a long-term trade treaty including an agreement on scientific co-operation. The logical corollary seemed to be to draw up a political treaty to normalize relations, as with Poland, and an official visit to Prague by Chancellor Brandt. And yet, negotiations hardly advanced over the next two years and only towards the end of his chancellorship did Brandt visit Czechoslovakia and sign the Treaty of Prague on 11 December 1973. Arguably, this significant delay contributed to the fact that the reconciliation process between Germany and Czechoslovakia ‘lagged behind’ and that the key symbolic events in their relations were postponed until the end of the Cold War.80 Why therefore did Brandt’s otherwise dynamic Ostpolitik advance so sluggishly with Czechoslovakia? Explanations refer to hesitations on both the German and Czech sides. In his memoirs, Brandt noted that he had certainly not forgo en

Summit Meetings as Icebreakers (1969–71) | 115

‘what was done to the Czechoslovak Republic as the Second World War approached, and what sufferings its people had to endure during the Nazi occupation’. But he also admi ed that in 1971–72 negotiations to se le the basic relationship between the two German states took priority on Bonn’s agenda. The historian Ferdinand Seibt concluded bi erly that Brandt’s Ostpolitik ranked Czechoslovakia lowest among Germany’s neighbours.81 Another explanation for West German reluctance was the Warsaw Pact’s invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 and the subsequent Eastern propaganda campaign accusing Bonn of having provoked the invasion through revanchism and meddling with Eastern affairs. Against this background, Brandt’s office was particularly cautious not to raise any Soviet suspicion regarding contacts with Czechoslovakia.82 The tragic ending of the Prague Spring was likewise a cause for Czechoslovak hesitation in renewing contacts with Bonn. A er Alexander Dubček’s fall from power, Gustáv Husák and his government were by turns susceptible to East German insinuations about the West German ‘enemy’ and to fears of isolation if they rejected Brandt. The result was a vacillating Czechoslovak rigidity in negotiations with Bonn in 1969–73. The bone of contention between the two parties was the question as to whether the Munich Agreement of 1938 should be declared invalid from the moment of its signature (ex tunc) or from now (ex nunc). As Bonn was taking advantage of its newfound position of diplomatic strength and Moscow did not endorse the Czech ex tunc demand, Prague eventually had to abandon its initial claim.83 Beyond these explanations of West German and Czechoslovak hesitations, internal documents suggest that tensions within the coalition in Bonn also had a dampening effect on relations with Prague. On 9 October 1970 a messenger sent by Vasil Bil’ak invited Egon Bahr to Prague for a high-level meeting with the Czechoslovak leadership and announced ‘We want to negotiate’.84 The invitation was addressed specifically to Bahr, who had led negotiations with Prague already in 1967–68 and played a key role in preparing the Treaty of Moscow earlier in 1970. Bahr welcomed the Czechoslovak initiative but declined to lead negotiations with Prague personally because he was assigned to take charge of contacts with East Germany. However, conflicting schedules were not the real reason for Bahr’s refusal. Internally, he even demonstrated an eagerness to meet with the Czechoslovak leaders but had to yield to strong pressure from Foreign Minister Scheel, who feared being sidelined by Chancellor Brandt’s personal network of trusted people (such as Bahr and Duckwitz).85 Even if Prague still insisted on receiving a high-ranking social democratic personality ‘like Bahr’, Brandt complied with the wishes of his coalition partner and instead appointed Paul Frank, a state secretary close to Scheel. Consequently, it was the Auswärtiges Amt and not the chancellery that

116 | Reconciliation Road

supervised the negotiations with Prague. Bahr warned Brandt that Frank did not fully understand the negotiation mechanisms of communist states and might not even be able to meet Bil’ak face-to-face. The warning went unheeded but proved correct. While in their initial contacts with Bahr the Czechoslovaks had expressed the intention to move ahead ‘without making difficulties’, subsequently they lost their zeal.86 This example may illustrate the importance of individual negotiators behind the scenes, their ability to understand and take account of unwri en rules followed by the other side and their readiness to make concessions. The reconciliation of Germany and the Soviet Union / Russia is not usually a topic addressed by studies of reconciliation processes following the Second World War. Such studies rather focus on German reconciliation efforts with France, Poland, Czechoslovakia / the Czech Republic and Israel.87 While the Soviet Union was not an immediate neighbour of Nazi Germany, in terms of loss of life it had suffered the greatest numbers of casualties – as Brandt’s office knew only too well.88 However, during the Cold War, the balance of power between West Germany and the mighty Soviet Union contrasted with Bonn’s relation to the minor powers Poland or Czechoslovakia. From Berlin, Brandt had been a witness to Moscow’s authoritarian rule since the late 1940s and he was disgusted by the Red Army’s violent suppression of uprisings or reform movements in East Germany (1953), Hungary (1956) and Czechoslovakia (1968). Against this background, Brandt put less emphasis on the goal of reconciliation in his contacts with Moscow even if he did declare at important occasions that he sought ‘reconciliation’ and ‘true peace’ with the Soviet Union.89 Moreover, he took into account that close relations between Bonn and Moscow raised suspicions and fears of ‘Rapallo’ among his Western allies but also in Eastern countries like Poland, which had suffered the consequences of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939. (As a result of the German–Soviet treaty of non-aggression, signed on 23 August 1939 by foreign ministers Vyacheslav Molotov and Joachim von Ribbentrop, Nazi Germany had invaded Poland unopposed by Soviet forces.) An episode reported by Egon Bahr may illustrate Brandt’s public caution. When in September 1971 Bahr prepared the joint communiqué for the Brandt– Brezhnev meeting in Oreanda (Crimea), the Soviets wished to include the term ‘friendship’ in the official statement. Brandt firmly refused: ‘Good neighbourly co-operation yes, friendship no.’ He also ensured that the Soviet leaders would not hug or even kiss him, as they o en did with their official guests.90 Relations with the Soviet Union were nevertheless an indispensable part of Brandt’s policy of reconciliation. Following his approach, the goals of resolving the German Question, of reconciling with Eastern peoples and overcoming the division of Europe were inextricably

Summit Meetings as Icebreakers (1969–71) | 117

linked. Both Brandt and Bahr were convinced that the key to transforming Europe’s stalemate division into East and West lay in Moscow. In other words, West German outreach to Eastern Europe would step into the void without Soviet approbation. The breakthrough in West German–Soviet relations was the signing of the Treaty of Moscow on 12 August 1970. This treaty was to form the basis not only for co-operation between the two signatory states, but also for Bonn’s future agreements with Eastern European states and eventually for the multilateral negotiations in the framework of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE). The preamble to the treaty emphasized the determination of the Soviet Union and West Germany to strengthen peace and ‘peaceful co-operation’ among European states, based on the Charter of the United Nations, and to improve bilateral co-operation including economic, scientific, technological and cultural relations. The treaty itself consisted of five relatively short articles. Article 1 stipulated the objective to achieve détente, proceeding ‘from the actual situation existing’ in Europe. The commitment to se le disputes peacefully and ‘to refrain from the threat or use of force’ was enshrined in Article 2. The key Article 3 regulated respect for the borders and territorial integrity of all European states, specifying that the Soviet Union and West Germany regarded ‘the frontiers of all States in Europe as inviolable such as they are’, with specific mention of the Oder–Neiße line and the frontier between East and West Germany. Articles 4 and 5 stated that the treaty did not affect any previous arrangements and referred to instruments of ratification.91 In addition, on the occasion of the signing of the treaty the West German government handed over a ‘Le er on German Unity’, which the Soviet government received without comment but without rejecting it. This document asserted that the signed treaty did ‘not contradict the political objective of the Federal Republic of Germany to work for a state of peace in Europe, in which the German people will regain their unity in free self-determination’. Moreover, upon receiving Soviet consent Bonn informed Washington, Paris and London that the Treaty of Moscow did not affect the rights and responsibilities of the Four Powers.92 The text of the treaty mainly resulted from a long series of arduous negotiations between Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko and State Secretary Bahr, with the la er commuting regularly to Moscow between late January and August 1970. In addition, in the final stages of the negotiations Foreign Minister Scheel also flew to Moscow to represent his government. Controversial elements in the preparation of the treaty included the main aspects of the German Question: Bonn’s recognition of the GDR and of European borders, the status of West Berlin and Soviet acquiescence to the future possibility of German unification. Bahr’s key achievement

118 | Reconciliation Road

was that Gromyko renounced the Soviet insistence on the ‘irrevocability’ of European borders and instead accepted the term ‘inviolability’ (Unverletzli keit in German, nerushimost’ in Russian), which implied the possibility of modifying the border between East and West Germany through peaceful negotiation and consent.93 Bahr made clear that no change whatsoever would be sought regarding the Oder–Neiße line, but that the hope of German unity had to be kept alive. While the Soviet side accepted the ‘Le er on German Unity’, it refused to incorporate any reference to German unification into the treaty itself. Early in the negotiations and closely related to the preparation of the Erfurt summit, Moscow had abandoned the prerequisite that Bonn recognize the GDR according to international law. Bahr’s most significant failure was the absence of any reference to West Berlin in the Treaty of Moscow or accompanying documents despite Brandt’s explicit request.94 Beyond these elements of West German– Soviet negotiation, the fact that Bonn and Moscow were preparing to sign a treaty ending their long-standing hostility provoked domestic controversies in both countries. In the Soviet Union in spring 1970 many journalists and the entire military leadership warned against the aggressiveness of imperialist West Germany and against trusting Brandt’s government. Influential officials like Aleksandr Shelepin and Boris Ponomarev opposed Moscow’s political overtures to Bonn and excessive trade ties with the West. In his telegrams from East Berlin, Ambassador Abrassimov regularly condemned the harmful effects of social democratic ideology and particularly the idea of German unity included in Brandt’s formulation that the relations between the ‘two states in Germany … can only be of a special kind’.95 However, Abrassimov’s superior in the Soviet Foreign Ministry, Valentin Falin, insisted on a more flexible position on the German Question. Most importantly, Brezhnev managed to establish a consensus among the key members of the Politburo – notably Alexei Kosygin, Mikhail Suslov and Nikolai Podgorny – that the benefits of co-operating and seeking acceptable compromises with Brandt’s government outweighed the downsides. Moscow had a vested interest in developing economic and technological ties and in Bonn’s recognition of European borders. Moreover, Brezhnev needed West German support to reach a Berlin se lement and to realize his personal objective of a pan-European security conference.96 Public opinion in West Germany clearly supported Brandt’s Ostpolitik yet CDU/CSU leaders were violently opposed to the alleged selling out of German interests and even accused Bahr of outright treason. Through his unconventional and secretive style of negotiating the Treaty of Moscow, he became the main recipient of domestic criticism.97 Following Lederach’s theory, secrecy is a key quality of negotiators behind the scenes, as it al-

Summit Meetings as Icebreakers (1969–71) | 119

lows them to act with informal flexibility and thereby to find a consensus with the opposite side. In Bahr’s case, secrecy came at the cost of suspicion and a deepening ri between government and the domestic opposition. Throughout the negotiations in Moscow, Bahr acted outside of the usual diplomatic channels and eluded direct control by the Auswärtiges Amt until in mid-May 1970 he transmi ed the consensus reached with Gromyko in the form of ten guiding principles (the ‘Bahr Paper’). While Brandt was in close contact with Bahr during the negotiation process, ‘everything was agreed on orally’ and Bahr followed no wri en rules.98 In at least two instances he deviated significantly from official West German policy. On 13 February he told Kosygin that Bonn’s long-term objective was to abolish the two military alliances and to gradually convert them into a European security system. And on 20 May he informed Falin that within four years a formal peace treaty might establish the full sovereignty of both German states and transform the rights of the Four Powers into a mere formality.99 Given Bahr’s considerable leeway these far-reaching statements were not necessarily endorsed by Brandt. In the spring of 1970 not even the Bonn ambassadors of the three Western powers were able to ascertain the substance of Bahr’s talks in Moscow. He answered the ambassadors’ questions so evasively that the interpreter did not know exactly what to translate.100 Bahr’s negotiations in Moscow thus circumvented the habitual control procedures and earned him the dubious internal reputation of an ‘all-out appeaser’ but in the end he achieved the result Brandt had hoped for.101 The Treaty of Moscow laid a new foundation for relations between West Germany and the Soviet Union, ended their decades-long hostility and opened for Brandt a door to Eastern Europe in general. The term ‘reconciliation’ did not figure either in the treaty or in the accompanying declarations. Yet Bahr had explained to Kosygin from the start that reconciliation was the main objective: ‘While our current talks are formally about the renunciation of force, in reality they are an attempt to reach reconciliation.’102 Bahr argued that reconciliation between West Germany, the Soviet Union and East Germany was indispensable for true détente in Europe and that the momentum was favourable, as Kosygin, Brandt and Ulbricht were united in their opposition to Nazism. When starting the negotiations that led to the Treaty of Moscow, Bahr likewise told Gromyko that Bonn’s intention was to initiate a process of Soviet-West German reconciliation.103 During the Moscow visit scheduled for the formal signing of the treaty, Brandt referred to aspects related to reconciliation without actually mentioning the term. In a broadcast from Moscow for German television he spoke about the ‘catastrophe’ and ‘unspeakable suffering’ preceding the capitulation of Hitler’s Third Reich and emphasized the need for the Germans to find ‘peace in the full sense of

120 | Reconciliation Road

the word’ with the people of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Brandt did not hesitate to criticize the Berlin Wall and the barbed wire along the Iron Curtain, insisting that West Germany was ‘firmly anchored’ in the Western community, then called on the Western Europeans to ‘envisage a partnership’ with Russia in order to create true peace in Europe. At the banquet a er the signing of the treaty he advocated ‘a new beginning’ and increased contact between German and Soviet ‘people at all levels’ to overcome mutual prejudices.104 In almost eight hours of confidential talks with Brandt, Brezhnev and Kosygin referred repeatedly to the sufferings of the past, to Adolf Hitler and the many millions of victims of the Second World War. They expressed grave concern over the perceived ‘forces of revanchism and ideas of fascism’ persisting in West Germany while sharing Brandt’s interpretation that the Treaty of Moscow was a turning point on a new road towards European peace.105 As has already been noted, addressing past suffering and present disagreements and envisaging the possibility of a common future are considered key aspects for the initiation of a reconciliation process. But it is not necessary at this stage for the two sides to share a similar perspective on historical events. Brandt even wrote in his memoirs that he had a ‘rather tedious’ first impression of Brezhnev and was ‘startled’ by the Soviet leader’s emotional outburst when reminiscing about his personal experiences of the Second World War.106 Overall, Brandt referred to past suffering rather vaguely and avoided specific detail about the German– Soviet slaughter during the Second World War. Combined with a forward-looking approach, his mostly symbolic statements on the shared past were nevertheless instrumental in launching a new start in West German– Soviet relations.107 On a personal level Brezhnev and Brandt did not regard each other as enemies nor did they develop strong personal bonds in August 1970. One year later, when meeting again on 16–18 September 1971 on the Crimean Peninsula, the two men did develop a sense of personal trust, which proved valuable for the further development of German Ostpolitik and European détente. Brezhnev had extended an invitation to Brandt rather spontaneously, on 1 September 1971, and insisted on meeting the West German chancellor without delegations or protocol, not even with an agenda for the day. The exceptionally personal nature of the summit already became apparent upon Brandt’s arrival at Simferopol Airport, as Brezhnev stood there all alone to greet him. Instead of driving directly to the Soviet state dacha in Oreanda, the two leaders decided to spend the rest of the day at the airport venue, telling jokes and drinking heavily.108 Over the three-day meeting they spent about sixteen hours in face-to-face discussions and enjoyed leisurely activities such as a boat ride in casual

Summit Meetings as Icebreakers (1969–71) | 121

FIGURE 4.2. On the Black Sea, 17 September 1971. The distinctly casual atmosphere of the Crimea summit contributed to establishing a sense of personal trust between Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev (far le ) and Willy Brandt (centre le , accompanied by Egon Bahr, front right). © Bundesregierung / Ludwig Wegmann.

a ire. Photographers had not been invited but appeared nonetheless, eagerly taking pictures of Brezhnev and Brandt swimming together in the Black Sea. The German guest found his Soviet host more open to genuine dialogue and more self-assured when discussing international affairs than the year before. Brezhnev no longer stuck to wri en statements and discussed his views frankly. Andrei Alexandrov-Agentov, Brezhnev’s foreign policy advisor present at Oreanda, commented later that Brezhnev was fortunate to deal with Brandt, ‘a man of crystal integrity, sincerely peace-loving and with firm antifascist convictions who not only hated Nazism, but fought against it during the war’. A er the Crimean meeting Brezhnev considered Brandt a friend.109 The trust that evolved between the two top leaders and their wish for more contact translated into a significant increase in Soviet–West German meetings on lower levels, including ministers and delegations of political parties and trade unions, business leaders and journalists.110 At the same time, the reports and photos of the Oreanda summit conveyed a sense of personal closeness between Brandt and Brezhnev that had seemed un-

122 | Reconciliation Road

imaginable for leaders belonging to antagonist military alliances. Among the Western allies, and especially in France, fears of ‘Rapallo’ emerged, coupled with (unfounded) rumours about a secret understanding between Brandt and Brezhnev.111 The West German politicians and press discussed whether Brandt’s behaviour had been entirely appropriate and questioned why Egon Bahr had been present at Oreanda but not Foreign Minister Scheel. Much to the la er’s discontent, Brandt had insisted on Bahr’s presence because of his unparalleled expertise in East–West negotiations.112 The skills of negotiators behind the scenes proved crucial for the next phase of Ostpolitik, which was launched unofficially in Oreanda. The focus of Brandt’s policy was no longer on breaking the ice and establishing official contacts with the East; now he wanted ‘more than normalizing relations and increasing trade’. His declared objective in Oreanda was to improve East–West relations permanently, to reach an agreement on mutually balanced force reductions and to gradually end the military confrontation.113 Now that Brandt’s Eastern policy had finally reached a level corresponding to the second stage of reconciliation (out of the four stages), he aimed at the next thicker (third) stage involving the transformation of political and economic structures. Indeed, the objectives of Ostpolitik were about to shi towards military détente and the holding of a pan-European security conference, the initially important summit meetings giving way to lower-level negotiations and efforts to institutionalize East–West contacts. In parallel, Bonn’s bilateral negotiations with Eastern capitals prepared the ground for the creation of a multilateral framework encompassing Eastern and Western Europe. In other words, Ostpolitik was to be institutionalized and multilateralized.

Notes 1. Lunchtime toast in honour of J. Cyrankiewicz, Warsaw, 7 December 1970, quoted in Brandt, People and Politics, 407. 2. Brandt’s SPD received 42.7 per cent of the votes (237 seats) and the FDP 5.8 per cent (31 seats), while the CDU/CSU remained the strongest party with 46.1 per cent of the votes and 250 seats in the Bundestag. 3. S midt, ‘Deuts landpolitik’, 200. F. Fis er, ‘Einleitung’, Berliner Ausgabe 6: 40. 4. Governmental declaration, 28 October 1969, and Report on the state of the nation, 14 January 1970, Berliner Ausgabe 6: 236–67 (255, 243–44 for the quotes). 5. Discussion of each treaty in Bender, Neue Ostpolitik, 155–205. 6. S. Savranskaya and W. Taubman, ‘Soviet Foreign Policy, 1962–1975’, in M.P. Leffler and O.A. Westad (eds), The Cambridge History of the Cold War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010) 2: 140–49. Soutou, Cinquante Ans, 491–93. J.M. Hanhimäki, ‘Détente in Europe, 1962-1975’, in Leffler and Westad, Cambridge History 2: 205–7.

Summit Meetings as Icebreakers (1969–71) | 123

7. D. Li and Y. Xia, Mao and the Sino-Soviet Split, 1959–1973: A New History (Lanham: Lexington, 2018). 8. On this issue, Zubok’s influential book Failed Empire is perhaps the most detailed study based on Soviet source material. See also Savranskaya and Taubman, ‘Soviet Foreign Policy’. D.J. Raleigh, ‘“Soviet” Man of Peace: Leonid Il’ich Brezhnev and His Diaries’, Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 17(4) (2016), 837–68. 9. For Soviet views on the Prague Spring, see G. Bischof, S. Karner and P. Ruggenthaler (eds), The Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 (Lanham: Lexington, 2010), 103–91, 319–40, 465–80. 10. Zubok, Failed Empire, 192–226 (205 for the quote). See also G. Arbatov, The System: An Insider’s Life in Soviet Politics (New York: Random House, 1993), 164–69, 182–83. V. Falin, Politische Erinnerungen (Munich: Droemer Knaur, 1993), 51–59. For Bonn–Moscow contacts in 1968–69, see J. von Dannenberg, The Foundations of Ostpolitik: The Making of the Moscow Treaty between West Germany and the USSR (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 41–50. 11. O. Richmond, The Transformation of Peace (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2005), 103. See also Paffenholz, ‘International Peacebuilding’, 11–27. 12. Usually, ‘track 1 diplomacy’ refers to official discussions among governmental leaders and ‘track 2 diplomacy’ to unofficial dialogue on lower levels. For further differentiations (e.g. track 1.5 diplomacy, track 3 diplomacy), see the website of the United States Institute of Peace, h ps://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/files/peaceterms.pdf, 50–51 (last accessed 30 March 2020). 13. Lederach, Building Peace, 37–71. 14. Ibid., 23. 15. M. Mazover, Hitler’s Empire: How the Nazis ruled Europe (New York: Penguin, 2008). 16. Feldman, Policy of Reconciliation, 14. Boulding, Stable Peace, 113. Dodds, ‘Governmental apologies’, 143. 17. D. Cortright, Peace: A History of Movements and Ideas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 153. He, Search for Reconciliation, 12–45. Schaap, Political Reconciliation, 64–67. 18. Roundtable Discussion on Cold War Summitry: Transcending the Division of Europe, 1970– 1990, on 24 September 2014 at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, London, 30, h p:// www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/assets/general/590364_FCO_Cold_War_Summitry_24.09.14-1 .pdf (last accessed 30 March 2020). During Brandt’s chancellorship, Brian Fall was involved in preparing the CSCE conferences from the UK side. 19. Ibid., 28–30. 20. Reynolds, Summits, 6. 21. For example, the Kennedy–Khrushchev summit in Vienna, in June 1961, is usually described as a failure with disastrous consequences for East–West relations. 22. Author’s interview with Ambassador Bruno de Leusse de Syon, on 21 July 2004 in Nernier. 23. Reynolds, Summits, 3–10, 370–81, 393–403. Spohr and Reynolds, Transcending the Cold War, 1–11, 233–51. K. Spohr, ‘Helmut Schmidt and the Shaping of Western Security in the Late 1970s: the Guadeloupe Summit of 1979’, The International History Review 37(1) (2015), 167–69. J. Melissen, ‘Pre-Summit Diplomacy: Britain, the United States and the Nassau Conference, December 1962’, Diplomacy & Statecra , 7(3) (1996), 652–55, 678–82. 24. Brandt governmental declaration, 28 October 1969, Bundestag, Berliner Ausgabe 6: 243 (for the translation: germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org). Memo Bahr, 17 December 1969, box 1/EBAA001026, Depositum Bahr, AdsD.

124 | Reconciliation Road

25. Politburo meeting, Dölln, 30 October 1969, DzD VI(1): 28 (Ulbricht quotes). For more detail on East German discussions, see Schoenborn and Niedhart, ‘Erfurt and Kassel’, 19–23. M.E. Saro e, ‘A Small Town in (East) Germany: The Erfurt Meeting of 1970 and the Dynamics of Cold War Détente’, Diplomatic History 25(1) (2001), 87–91. 26. Sahm ‘Tagebuch’ (diary), 2 March 1970, 41, box 114, N1474, BArch. 27. Saro e, ‘A Small Town’, 91, quoting a report by East German Foreign Minister O o Winzer, 11 March 1970. Handwri en note Bahr to Brandt, 12 March 1970, box 429B, Depositum Bahr, AdsD. For Bahr’s interpretation of Soviet motives, see Luncheon conversation Kissinger–Bahr, 8 April 1970, FRUS 1969–76, vol. 40, 204–6, h ps:// history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v40/d76 (last accessed 30 March 2020). 28. Brandt declaration, German television, 18 Mar 1970, in Bulletin der Bundesregierung, 20 Mar 1970, 382 (quote). Brandt declaration, Copenhagen, 13 February 1970, Bulletin der Bundesregierung, 17 February 1970, 201. 29. Memo Bahr, ‘Überlegungen zur Außenpolitik einer kün igen Bundesregierung’, 21 September 1969, AAPD 1969(2): 1,054–55 (quote). Memo Bahr, 19 February 1970, box 384, Depositum Bahr, AdsD. Dossier ‘Argumentation BK in Erfurt’, 16 Mar 1970, box 6,689, B136, BAr . Memo Ruete, 19 February 1970, AAPD 1970(1): 292–94. 30. Brandt, Begegnungen, 490–91 (quotes). Sahm Tagebu , 19 Mar 1970, 150–54, box 114, N1474, BAr . 31. Brandt speech (manuscript), Jülich Research Centre, 21 March 1970, box 340, A3, WBA (quote). Brandt, Erinnerungen, 226. J. S önfelder and R. Erices, Willy Brandt in Erfurt: Das erste deuts -deuts e Gipfeltreffen 1970 (Berlin: Links, 2010), 206–13. 32. Meeting Stoph–Brandt, 19 March 1970, Erfurt, DzD VI(1): 398–435 (405–6 for the quotes). 33. Ibid., 411–19, 426–33. Memo Brandt, Conversation with Stoph, 19 March 1970, Berliner Ausgabe 6: 287 (quote). 34. Brandt interview with the Nordhessische Zeitung, 21 July 1970, box 364, A3, WBA (quote). Regarding relations with East Germans, Brandt had referred to ‘inner reconciliation’ since 1960, see Brandt, ‘Ringen um Aussöhnung im Innern’, Düsseldorfer Nachrichten, 14 December 1960, box 108, A3, WBA. Brandt, ‘Anspra e in Berlin’, 29 April 1965, box 207, A3, WBA. 35. Bahr, Zu meiner Zeit, 247. 36. F. Fanon, Toward the African Revolution (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1967), discussed by Schaap, Political Reconciliation, 44. 37. Schaap, Political Reconciliation, 5–6, 45 (quotes). 38. Ibid., 41–55, 87–93. See also C. Taylor, Philosophical Arguments (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 225–26. 39. Brandt governmental declaration, 28 October 1969, Bundestag, Berliner Ausgabe 6: 237 (‘Au wenn zwei Staaten in Deuts land existieren, sind sie do füreinander ni t Ausland; ihre Beziehungen zueinander können nur von besonderer Art sein.’) 40. Memo Bahr, 21 September 1969, AAPD 1969(2): 1,054–55. 41. Memo Lahn, 24 March 1970, AAPD 1970(1): 515–17. Bahr (Moscow) to Brandt, 14 May 1970, AAPD 1970(2): 770. 42. Brandt speech (manuscript), Jülich Research Centre, 21 March 1970, box 340, A3, WBA. 43. D. Nakath, Deuts -deuts e Grundlagen: Zur Ges i te der politis en und wirts a lien Beziehungen zwis en der DDR und der Bundesrepublik in den Jahren von 1969 bis 1982 (S keuditz: S keuditzer Bu verlag, 2002), 76–81. 44. Meeting Stoph–Brandt, Kassel, 21 May 1970, DzD VI(1): 548–50, 556–58. 45. Ibid., 561–78, 585–86.

Summit Meetings as Icebreakers (1969–71) | 125

46. In 1957, the EEC partners had agreed to sign an appendix to the Rome Treaty exempting trade between East and West Germany from customs duties, while the common external tariff did apply to trade between East Germany and the other EEC members. For more detail, see Nakath, Deuts -deuts e Grundlagen, 344–54. See also Brandt, Begegnungen, 504. 47. Memo Brandt on private meetings with Stoph, Kassel, 21 May 1970, Berliner Ausgabe 6: 309–15 (quote on 314). East German record of the same meetings in DzD VI(1): 595–99. 48. Memo Brandt, 21 May 1970, Berliner Ausgabe 6: 314 (quoting Stoph). A. Baring, Ma twe sel: Die Ära Brandt-S eel (Stu gart: Deuts e Verlags-Anstalt, 1982), 288–92. 49. Barzel speech, plenary session 06/053, 27 May 1970, 2,665–72, h p://dipbt.bundestag. de/doc/btp/06/06053.pdf (last accessed 30 March 2020). Brandt interview with the Nordhessis e Zeitung, 21 July 1970, box 364, A3, WBA (quote). Brandt press conference, 22 May 1970, box 1,527, U/P, Willy Brandt, Personalia, AdsD. 50. Brandt interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung, 17 March 1970, box 339, A3, WBA (quote). H. Po hoff, Im S a en der Mauer: Deuts landpolitik 1961 bis 1990 (Berlin: Propyläen, 1999), 100–1. 51. Brandt, Begegnungen, 490, 509. 52. Neues Deuts land, 20–21 Mar and 22–23 May 1970. L. Mundze , ‘Der “Geist von Erfurt”: Das Gipfeltreffen am 19. März 1970 in der deuts en Presse’, in S. Raßloff (ed.), ‘Willy Brandt ans Fenster!’ Das Erfurter Gipfeltreffen 1970 (Jena: Gera, 2007), 84–89, 93–95. See the press collection in box 1,833–34, BPA, 1970, Willy Brandt, Personalia, AdsD, notably D. Binder, ‘Brandt Asks Stoph to Unbend’, International Herald Tribune, 23 May 1970. 53. Brandt, People and Politics, 398. 54. Brandt to Cyrankiewicz, 25 December 1969, AAPD 1969(2): 1,470–71 (quotes). Brandt spee , Inauguration of Deuts -Israelis e Gesells a , 19 May 1966, box 232, A3, WBA. 55. K.D. Hein-Mooren, ‘Spontan oder geplant? Bemerkungen zu Willy Brandts Kniefall in Wars au’, Ges i te in Wissens a und Unterri t 55(12) (2004), 745–46. See also G. Grass, My Century (London: Faber, 1999), 185–86. Film footage of the scene is available on the internet. 56. Brandt interview with Der Spiegel, 14 December 1970, Berliner Ausgabe 6: 351. Brandt, People and Politics, 399. 57. S aap, Political Reconciliation, 70 (quote). 58. H. Ehmke, Mi endrin: Von der Großen Koalition zur Deuts en Einheit (Berlin: Rowohlt, 1994), 125. 59. Since the beginning of the anti-Semitic campaign in March 1968, more than 30,000 Polish Jews had fled the country. 60. L. Kopelew, ‘Bekenntnisse eines Sowjetbürgers’, 11 February 1977, Die Zeit, h ps://www. zeit.de/1977/07/bekenntnisse-eines-sowjetbuergers/komple ansi t (last accessed 30 Mar 2020) (quote). Discussed in A. Behrens, ‘Dur e Brandt knien?’ Der Kniefall in Wars au und der deuts -polnis e Vertrag (Bonn: Dietz, 2010), 9. A. Krzemiński, ‘Der Kniefall’, in E. François and H. S ulze (eds), Deuts e Erinnerungsorte: Eine Auswahl (Muni : Be , 2005), 441–43. M. Wolffsohn and T. Bre enma er, Denkmalsturz? Brandts Kniefall (Muni : Olzog, 2005), 27. 61. Author’s correspondence with Krzysztof Gawęda in October 2019. 62. Krzemiński, ‘Der Kniefall’, 443. S midt, ‘Deuts landpolitik’, 212. See the contributions by F.R Stern, B. Komorowski, R. Sikorski, A. Krzemiński and M. Tomala in Andrychowicz et al., Europa. On the long-term effect of the Kniefall and Brandt’s 1970 visit to Warsaw, see also G. Hofmann, Polen und Deutsche: Der Weg zur europäischen Revolution 1989/90 (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2011).

126 | Reconciliation Road

63. Wolffsohn and Brechenmacher, Denkmalsturz?, 52–65. 64. The opinion poll was conducted by the Allensbach Institute and published, among others, by Der Spiegel, 14 December 1970, 27. A. Wilkens, ‘Kniefall vor der Ges i te: Willy Brandt in Wars au 1970’, in C. Defrance and U. Pfeil (eds), Verständigung und Versöhnung na dem ‘Zivilisationsbru ’? Deutschland in Europa nach 1945 (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2016), 98. Lind, ‘Perils of Apology’, 141, highlights the detrimental effects of public controversies whenever the Japanese government a empted to apologize for war crimes. 65. Author’s interview with Hermann Kusterer, on 15 November 2010 in Bonn. 66. C. S neider, Der Wars auer Kniefall: Ritual, Ereignis und Erzählung (Konstanz: UVK Verlagsgesells a , 2006), esp. 263, 282. 67. J. Renner, ‘Germany-Poland: The Ritualisation of Apology’, in C. Daase, S. Engert, M.A. Horelt, J. Renner and R. Strassner (eds), Apology and Reconciliation in International Relations: The Importance of Being Sorry (London: Routledge, 2016), 55–65. 68. H. Arendt, ‘Collective Responsibility’ (first published 1968), in J.W. Bernauer (ed.), Amor Mundi: Explorations in the Faith and Thought of Hannah Arendt (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1987), 43–44 (quotes). S aap, Political Reconciliation, 125–27. T. Dürr, Hannah Arendts Begriff des Verzeihens (Freiburg: Karl Alber, 2014), 370–71. 69. English version of the treaty at h ps://www.cvce.eu/content/publication/1999/1/1/7f33 63b0-2705-472a-b535-c42bd229f9e2/publishable_en.pdf (last accessed 30 March 2020). 70. Brandt press conferences in Warsaw and at the airport Cologne/Bonn, 8 December 1970, Bulletin der Bundesregierung, 9 December 1970, 1,878–80 (quotes). AAPD 1970(3): 2,196, 2,213. 71. Brandt speech, live broadcast on West German television and radio channels, Warsaw, 7 December 1970, Archiv der Gegenwart, 28,438–42. Parts of the speech in Brandt, People and Politics, 399–400. 72. Cyrankiewicz lunchtime toast, 7 December 1970, cited in Brandt, People and Politics, 407 (quote). German-Polish meetings, 7–8 December 1970, AAPD 1970(3): 2,195–222, 2,241–50. 73. Bahr, Zu meiner Zeit, 338. 74. Selvage, ‘Treaty of Warsaw’, 67–68, 73–74. 75. W. Jarząbek, ‘Deuts e (Neue) Ostpolitik aus polnis er Perspektive, 1966-1972’, in F. Boll and K. Ru niewicz (eds), ‘Nie mehr eine Politik über Polen hinweg’: Willy Brandt und Polen (Bonn: Dietz, 2010), 79–81. 76. Le er Dönhoff to Brandt, 1 December 1970, in Behrens, Dur e Brandt knien?, 139 (quote). Hajnicz, Polens Wende, 146–47 (quote). U. S röber, ‘Zei en der Versöhnung: Der Beitrag der Kir en zur Völkerverständigung na dem Zweiten Weltkrieg’, in Defrance and Pfeil, Verständigung, 580–83. See also F. Boll, W. Wyso i and K. Ziemer (eds), Versöhnung und Politik: Polnis -deuts e Versöhnungsinitiativen der 1960er Jahre und die Entspannungspolitik (Bonn: Dietz, 2009), 12–20, 256–61, 289–93. 77. E. Bahr, Ostwärts und ni ts vergessen! Kooperation sta Konfrontation (Hamburg: VSA: Verlag, 2012), 50–54. Report on German–Polish meetings in Warsaw, Archiv der Gegenwart, 28,437–38. 78. Meeting Brandt–Gomułka, 7 December 1970, AAPD 1970(3): 2,210–20. Brandt, People and Politics, 412 (quote). 79. M. Tomala, Deuts land – von Polen gesehen: Zu den deuts -polnis en Beziehungen 19451990 (Marburg: S üren, 2000), 320. Jarząbek, ‘Deutsche (Neue) Ostpolitik’, 80. However, Bahr (Ostwärts, 55) observed that Brandt was already somewhat disappointed at Polish reactions when leaving Warsaw, on 8 December 1970. 80. Feldman, Policy of Reconciliation, 265 (quote), 277.

Summit Meetings as Icebreakers (1969–71) | 127

81. Brandt, My Life, 204 (quote). Brandt, People and Politics, 415. F. Seibt, Deuts e, Ts e en, Sudetendeuts e: Analysen und Stellungnahmen zu Ges i te und Gegenwart aus fünf Jahrzehnten (Muni : Oldenbourg, 2002), 301. 82. Memo Gaus for Brandt, 5 September 1973, box 180, A8, WBA. Meeting Kiesinger– Zarapkin, 2 September 1968, AAPD 1968(2): 1,069–76. See also Feldman, Policy of Reconciliation, 268, quoting Václav Havel in this context. 83. P.R. Weber, ‘“Normalisierung”: Deuts -ts e oslowakis e Beziehungen in ihrem lokalen geopolitis en Dreie DDR-ČSSR-BRD (1965–1973)’, in M. Řezník and K. Rosenbaum (eds), DDR und ČS(S)R 1949–1989: Eine Beziehungsges i te am Anfang (Muni : Martin Meidenbauer, 2012), 63–69. Bender, Neue Ostpolitik, 200. 84. Memo Bahr, 9 October 1970, AAPD 1970(3): 1,704–5. Bil’ak was an influential member of the Presidium of the Central Commi ee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. 85. Scheel memo, 14 October 1970, AAPD 1970(3): 1,759. Scheel’s rejection of Bahr’s wishes to meet the Czechoslovak leadership was unusually direct. 86. Handwri en memo Bahr for Brandt, 28 October 1970, box 1/EBAA001040, Depositum Bahr, AdsD (quote). Bahr memo, 30 October 1970, ibid. Two Bahr memos, 10 November 1970, AAPD 1970(3): 1,998, 2,001–3. On Brandt–Scheel tensions in autumn 1970, see Brandt, People and Politics, 402–3. 87. E.g. Feldman, Policy of Reconciliation. Lind, Sorry States. Daase et al., Apology and Reconciliation. 88. Conversation Bahr–Szla cic, 8 June 1973, box 1/EBAA001037, Depositum Bahr, AdsD. 89. Plenary session 05/180, 20 June 1968, 9,702, h p://dipbt.bundestag.de/doc/btp/05/05180. pdf (last accessed 30 March 2020). West German memorandum of 9 April 1968, Archiv der Gegenwart, 24,793. See also Morina, Legacies of Stalingrad, 204–6. 90. Author’s interview with Bahr, 14 April 2004. 91. Treaty between the Federal Republic of Germany and the Soviet Union, Moscow, 12 August 1970, h ps://www.cvce.eu/content/publication/1999/1/1/d5341cb5-1a49-4603aec9-0d2304c25080/publishable_en.pdf (last accessed 30 March 2020). 92. Le er on German Unity, 12 August 1970, Ar iv der Gegenwart, 28,014 (quotes). 93. Bahr Paper, ‘Leitsätze für einen Vertrag mit der UdSSR’, 20 May 1970, AAPD 1970(2): 823. See also the meetings Bahr–Gromyko in AAPD 1970(1–2), notably on 30 January (p. 105–18), 17 February (256–60), 6 March (381–86) and 12 May 1970 (739–43). Vogtmeier, Egon Bahr, 121–39. On Scheel’s part in the final stages of negotiation, see Dannenberg, Foundations of Ostpolitik, 62–66. 94. Message Brandt to Bahr (Moscow), 3 August 1970, AAPD 1970(2): 1,363. W. Link, ‘Die Entstehung des Moskauer Vertrages im Li te neuer Ar ivalien’, Vierteljahrshe e für Zeitges i te 49(2) (2001), 310. 95. A.M. Filitov, ‘The USSR and FRG’s “New Ostpolitik”’, MGIMO Review of International Relations 54(3) (2017), 135–36, quoting Abrassimov’s telegrams of early 1970 (in Russian). Shelepin had lost some of his influence in 1967 but remained a Politburo member until 1975. Ponomarev was the secretary of the Central Commi ee but not a member of the Politburo, the highest political body of the USSR. 96. Ibid., 135–36. M.J. Sodaro, Moscow, Germany, and the West from Khrushchev to Gorbachev (London: Tauris, 1991), 178–82. 97. W.G. Gray, ‘Paradoxes of Ostpolitik: Revisiting the Moscow and Warsaw Treaties, 1970’, Central European History 49(3–4) (2016), 410, 418. 98. Bahr quote in H. Allardt, Moskauer Tagebu : Beoba tungen, Notizen, Erlebnisse (Düsseldorf: Econ, 1980), 266. Bahr Paper, 20 May 1970, AAPD 1970(2): 822–24.

128 | Reconciliation Road

99. Meeting Bahr–Kosygin, 13 February 1970, AAPD 1970(1): 245. Meeting Falin–Bahr, 20 May 1970, summarized by Link, ‘Entstehung’, 312 (based on Falin’s record of the conversation). 100. Author’s interview with the interpreter, Hermann Kusterer, on 15 November 2010. 101. Quote by Brandt’s spokesman Conrad Ahlers, in Gray, ‘Paradoxes of Ostpolitik’, 420. 102. Meeting Bahr–Kosygin, 13 February 1970, AAPD 1970(1): 242. 103. Meeting Bahr–Gromyko, 17 February 1970, AAPD 1970(1): 257. 104. Brandt speech from Moscow, German television, 12 August 1970, Archiv der Gegenwart, 28,027–30. Brandt toast in honour of Kosygin, 12 August 1970, ibid., 28,004–6. 105. Meetings Brandt–Brezhnev and Brandt–Kosygin, 12–13 August 1970, AAPD 1970(2): 1,438–64, 1,467–72 (Kosygin quote on page 1,440). 106. Brandt, My Life, 182, 187. 107. On Brandt’s vagueness, especially regarding the German–Soviet past, see Morina, Legacies of Stalingrad, 206–14 and Meyer, ‘Mut zur Wahrheit’, 54–57. 108. Meeting Brandt–Falin, 1 September 1971, AAPD 1971(3): 1,311–12. Brandt, My Life, 191–92. 109. Zubok, Failed Empire, 211 (quoting Alexandrov-Agentov), 213. Brandt, People and Politics, 348. Raleigh, ‘Man of Peace’, 858–64. 110. Niedhart, ‘Transformation through Communication’, 53. 111. Memo Meyer–Landrut, Information of Western allies, 11 October 1971, box 71, B41, PA/ AA. Telegram Ruete (Paris), 13 September 1971, AAPD 1971(3): 1,369–72. 112. Handwri en le er Brandt to S eel, box N82-7, Na lass S eel, Ar iv des Liberalismus, Gummersba (ADL). Memo Referat L1, 24 September 1971, box 71, B41, PA/AA. 113. Memo Brandt on talks with Brezhnev in Oreanda, 17 September 1971, Berliner Ausgabe 6: 382 (quote). Bender, Neue Ostpolitik, 178.

Chapter 5

DEVELOPING NEW FRAMEWORKS (1971–74)

( The circumstances of our life have a mysterious course which cannot be calculated. —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 18291

Ostpolitik Loses Momentum The first two years of Brandt’s chancellorship and his high-profile meetings with Eastern leaders broke with previous confrontational pa erns and introduced a new sense of approachability and even friendliness into East–West interaction, although the systemic conflict and the division of Europe persisted. The Brandt-Scheel government had taken office in October 1969 intent upon alleviating East–West tensions, breaking the deadlock in the German Question and promoting co-operation between the European peoples. Two years later, the social-liberal coalition had achieved significant progress towards these objectives.2 Positive results were also apparent in opinion polls in West Germany. Notwithstanding the fierce CDU/CSU opposition to Brandt’s Ostpolitik in the Bundestag, in April 1972 a clear majority of fi y-seven per cent of West Germans viewed the Eastern Treaties favourably and only fi een per cent unfavourably. In August 1972, forty-three per cent of the West German population believed that the Treaty of Warsaw would lead to permanently good relations with Poland against twenty-four per cent who believed that it would not. Even though a majority of West Germans assumed that the Soviet Union was not sincere in pursuing a policy of understanding with the West, in April 1971 a new low of twenty-eight per cent felt ‘threatened’ by the Soviet Union (against forty-six per cent ‘not threatened’ and twenty-six per cent Notes for this chapter begin on page 157.

130 | Reconciliation Road

not having an opinion). In order to promote reconciliation with Poland, public opinion expressed the strongest support for the facilitation of travel, regular consultations between governments and closer economic contacts. Overall, the opinion polls indicate that in 1969–73 the West German population developed more positive expectations towards relations with the East, which is in itself one indicator of incipient reconciliation.3 For Chancellor Brandt, a major benefit of the treaties with the Soviet Union and Poland was that these countries could no longer blame West Germany for their political crises and were now deprived of their traditional scapegoat. Brandt was acutely aware that ‘the Russians have relinquished a weapon, which they have so far wielded to discipline the Warsaw Pact’, and he counted on the positive effects of the new situation for the development of Eastern Europe. From the Soviet viewpoint, a major challenge resulting from the Treaty of Moscow was indeed to neutralize centrifugal tendencies within the Eastern camp, a er anti-West German propaganda had lost its credibility.4 In more abstract terms, Chancellor Brandt’s launch of Ostpolitik reduced East–West polarization and contributed to rehumanizing the formerly demonized enemies on the other side of the Iron Curtain. Such developments may be considered essential steps towards reconciliation.5 The summits in Erfurt, Kassel, Moscow, Warsaw, Oreanda and lower-level preparatory meetings created a space for politics where antagonists from opposing camps came together to reshape the world, thereby beginning something new. According to theoretical expectations, by engaging in a collective discourse about the world they share, the ‘world might become more common to former enemies’. Brandt’s initiation of regular meetings with Eastern officials was therefore likely to a enuate the split between ‘us and them’ and invoked the possibility of a future ‘we’. No agreement on moral norms is needed in the early stages of reconciliation and indeed there was no such agreement in the processes examined here.6 Brandt explained to the German public in unequivocal terms that he saw no common ground for the diverging politico-economic systems in East and West and that it would be ‘foolish’ (dummes Zeug) to discuss the convergence of the two; such debates may only become relevant ‘for generations that come a er us’.7 Moreover, he was well aware that no consensus could be reached regarding the German Question and that Bahr’s achievement in Moscow was merely to arrive at an interim modus vivendi keeping future options open. At this stage, Brandt’s role was to hold together the apparently irreconcilable, but he was unable to offer any specific solution as to how the incompatible elements might be reconciled in the future. From the viewpoint of reconciliation, another significant aspect is that Brandt addressed the relationship with the East in both prospective and

Developing New Frameworks (1971–74) | 131

retrospective terms. He o en referred to the Nazi past and had no qualms about discussing its consequences with Eastern leaders and especially through his Kniefall at the Warsaw Ghe o memorial he expressed credible and touching remorse. This gesture corresponded to Brandt’s political conviction and determination to take responsibility for the legacy of past crimes commi ed in the name of Germany. Arguably, his action was consonant with the theoretical meaning of ‘political responsibility’ in reconciliation processes, described as ‘living through the consequences of what has happened in the present’ (instead of halting the course of events and starting over). Accepting this kind of political responsibility is an expression of caring for the world and responding to what has been done.8 As mentioned, the outcome of a reconciliation process is inherently unpredictable. Departing from traditional behaviour and enacting something new leaves others likewise free to respond in unexpected ways. Thus, the diverse perceptions of the world and the plurality of views render the result of a new collective discourse unpredictable. The initiation of a political exchange on the shared world may actually lead the antagonists to confirm their enmity. In other words, the further development of a new policy of reconciliation depends on the reactions of others and therefore cannot be predetermined.9 In the case of Ostpolitik, the ‘others’ included the leaders and peoples of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe but also the Western allies and not least the political opposition in West Germany. Many observed that the short-term and especially the longerterm consequences of Brandt’s policy were uncertain. Even with the benefit of hindsight, Western scholars have pointed out the inherent risk in West Germany’s overtures to the East, which might well have turned to the West’s disadvantage. Eventually this did not happen, so the argument goes, because the Soviet leadership was too calcified to take advantage of the situation and because West Germany’s political and economic development proved too dynamic.10 Brandt was acutely aware that his policy involved uncertainty. As he had argued at Harvard University in 1962, the West’s opening up for interaction with the East inevitably carried a risk, but he believed that increased contact and co-operation would eventually demonstrate the superiority of the Western over the Eastern system and in the process improve the lives of the European peoples. In the years 1972–74, a er the spectacular first achievements, Brandt’s Ostpolitik lost much of its initial momentum. The bilateral and multilateral negotiations did not entirely live up to early expectations and there were fewer steps towards the intended reconciliation than had been hoped for. The projected transformation of political and economic structures (corresponding to stage three of a reconciliation process) remained largely unachieved. Academic research indicates that the reactions of the East-

132 | Reconciliation Road

ern and Western ‘others’ were instrumental in restricting the ambitions of Ostpolitik. Despite Brezhnev and Brandt bonding in Oreanda, Moscow did not act as Bonn’s friend over the following years. Warsaw, Prague and East Berlin proved to be reluctant negotiation partners. West Germany’s allies supported the common project of détente but voiced concerns about Bonn’s farther-reaching ambitions, concerns that Brandt could not ignore. French President Pompidou vehemently opposed West German plans for Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions (MBFR) in Central Europe, a key objective of Brandt’s further implementation of Ostpolitik. Paris postulated that MBFR would not increase security but divide Western Europe and open the door to the neutralization of Central Europe. In sum, MBFR would lead to dangerous and unacceptable consequences for the French.11 US President Nixon and his advisor, Henry Kissinger, struggled to reaffirm US leadership in détente policy, fearing that the West Germans would let Moscow drive a wedge between the transatlantic partners. Kissinger bluntly instructed Bonn that ‘if a course of détente is to be pursued with the Soviet Union, we will do it’.12 In private conversations he made disparaging comments: ‘The Germans are not vicious, they are stupid. Brandt … thinks he can conduct a foreign policy that even we find hard to do.’ In order to give the inevitable German–Soviet negotiations a ‘constructive direction’, Kissinger used the Quadripartite Agreement on Berlin to control and slow down the pace of Ostpolitik.13 As Nixon’s government no longer embraced Lyndon B. Johnson’s project of reconciliation with Eastern Europe, and West Germany had only limited agency (due to its semi-sovereign status), Washington’s restrictive a itude had direct effects on Brandt’s Ostpolitik. Notably, Brandt depended on the Quadripartite Agreement to fill the legal void of Berlin’s status and due to established linkages with the Eastern Treaties. Ambassadors of the Four Powers had been preparing the Quadripartite Agreement since March 1970, yet Washington used the issue as leverage against the Soviet and West German governments, both of whom had a vital interest in the success of Ostpolitik. Only upon his first visit to China in July 1971 did Kissinger judge the time ripe to unlock the Berlin negotiations. Through informal back channel discussions – Kissinger’s preferred style of diplomacy – it was again Egon Bahr who exerted influence on the negotiations in Brandt’s name. The Quadripartite Agreement finally entered into force in June 1972 and confirmed the four-power control over the city, stipulating that ‘there shall be no use or threat of force in the area’. Bonn obtained the important guarantee that the transit traffic between West Berlin and West Germany would no longer be impeded by East Germany and Moscow gained the validation that West Berlin was ‘not to be a constituent part of the Federal Republic of Germany and not to be governed by it’.14

Developing New Frameworks (1971–74) | 133

The ratification of the Eastern Treaties by the Bundestag proved to be a major challenge for Brandt’s government. Without passing this critical bo leneck, the whole process of Ostpolitik would have been derailed, as the implementation of all bilateral treaties was contingent upon domestic ratification. The CDU/CSU opposition was unprecedentedly aggressive in its leadership of the campaign against the social-liberal Eastern policy and in April 1972, opposition leader Rainer Barzel tabled a motion of censure in order to oust Brandt as chancellor. Barzel accused the government of pursuing a failed Eastern policy, of prolonging the division of Germany instead of overcoming it, of pu ing West Germany at risk through uncertain relations with the Soviet Union, of betraying the German people by recognizing the Oder–Neiße border and of endangering the fundaments of the Republic with a programme of socialist transformation. Concerning reconciliation with the East, Barzel rejected such ambitions unless preceded by agreements on security and human rights, thus advocating an understanding on moral norms as the precondition for a process of reconciliation.15 When the Bundestag voted on the motion of censure on 27 April 1972, Barzel looked likely to succeed and become the new chancellor, yet he polled only 247 votes instead of the required minimum of 249. The socialliberal government had actually lost its majority in the Bundestag when ten deputies le the coalition earlier in the year, but two opposition deputies abstained from voting on the decisive day. Academic research has subsequently revealed that the Stasi had bribed one CDU and one CSU deputy to turn against Barzel, which means that Brandt (unknowingly) stayed in power because of clandestine East German intervention. The social-liberal government and the conservative opposition subsequently adopted a joint resolution stating that the Treaties of Moscow and Warsaw would not be binding upon the future government of a united Germany, thereby again raising doubts about the finality of Poland’s Western borders. Brandt found this resolution hard to accept but eventually did so in order to ensure the Bundestag ratification of the treaties, which took place on 17 May 1972.16 The Brandt-Scheel government eventually consolidated its power by calling new Bundestag elections in November 1972. The social-liberal coalition achieved a decisive victory and a comfortable majority in the new Bundestag, with the SPD holding 242 seats, the FDP forty-two and the CDU/CSU 234 seats. The result also confirmed the support of the electorate for the government’s Eastern policy. The success of Ostpolitik placed the top leader, Willy Brandt, very much in the international limelight. On 10 December 1971 he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his a empt to ‘seek reconciliation across the mass graves of the war’ and for giving people ‘hope and belief’ by kneeling at

134 | Reconciliation Road

the Jewish memorial in Warsaw.17 In a similar vein, the US Time magazine named Brandt ‘Man of the Year’ and commented: Willy Brandt is the first West German statesman willing to accept the complete consequences of defeat: the lost land, the admission of moral responsibility, the acknowledgment of Germany’s partition … While most political leaders in 1970 were reacting to events rather than shaping them, Brandt stood out as an innovator. He has projected the most exciting and hopeful vision for Europe since the Iron Curtain crashed down … It is a daring vision, full of opportunity and danger … and may not be realized for a long time, if ever.18

The international acclaim and recognition motivated Brandt to persevere in his endeavour; nevertheless, the incessant domestic criticism and denunciations took their toll on his performance. A er the hard-fought battle for the ratification of the Eastern Treaties and the subsequent election campaign, Brandt was ‘physically and mentally exhausted’ – and never fully recovered until the end of his chancellorship. In December 1972 he underwent throat surgery, initially fearing that he had laryngeal cancer. He followed the formation of the new government from hospital and let Herbert Wehner and Helmut Schmidt take charge. Schmidt had been a strong supporter of Brandt in the pursuit of social democratic objectives and notably the implementation of Ostpolitik, yet beyond their political partnership the two men were also political rivals. Brandt actually suspected that Schmidt, his potential successor, was already sawing the legs from under his chair.19 When Wehner publicly humiliated Brandt during a Moscow trip in October 1973, declaring that ‘the chancellor likes to bathe lukewarm’ and ‘what the government lacks is a head’, Brandt did not have the strength to force Wehner’s resignation. Inevitably, the chancellor lost authority within his government. Brandt’s tendency to spend whole days incarcerated in his bedroom became more frequent, sometimes brought to an end by Horst Ehmke’s visit and the friendly request ‘Willy, get up, we have to run the country’.20 While a precise causality cannot be established for Brandt’s behaviour, a parallel appears in the warning by political theorists that care for the world should not become rampant in politics. ‘When care overwhelms the agent, it gives rise to depressive guilt, a surfeit of which leads to withdrawal from the world for fear of being implicated in political injustice.’21 Brandt’s disapproving view of the all-party resolution of May 1972, which he had to endorse for domestic reasons, was proof that Ostpolitik had actually reached the limits of what he considered just and morally correct.22 A er the ratification of the Eastern Treaties in May 1972 and until he stepped down as chancellor in May 1974, Brandt was clearly less involved in promoting Ostpolitik than during the first half of his chancellorship.

Developing New Frameworks (1971–74) | 135

A er all, Eastern policy was only one part of his responsibilities and other topics came to dominate his political agenda. On 1 January 1973, the European Community welcomed three new Member States, namely the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Denmark. Henry Kissinger’s announcement of ‘The Year of Europe’ in April 1973 was deemed condescending by European leaders and exacerbated transatlantic disagreements. The war of October 1973 between Israel and a coalition of Arab states shi ed world a ention to the Middle East and led to an oil embargo and the quadrupling of oil prices. The ensuing energy crisis combined with the collapse of the international monetary system of Bre on Woods, which had gradually occurred in 1970–73, pushed economic challenges to the top of European agendas. Domestically, the West German government faced wildcat strikes and inflation related to the energy crisis. While Chancellor Brandt devoted much of his daily schedule to dealing with such emergencies, negotiations with Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union developed on lower levels and achieved apparently modest outcomes. Nevertheless, some of the results eventually proved significant.

Creating Bilateral Networks Brandt’s Ostpolitik led to the development of various kinds of networks and regular contacts across the Iron Curtain, on both bilateral and multilateral levels. This section addresses the bilateral networks and the next section the a empts by Brandt’s government to create multilateral frameworks. In bilateral relations with the Eastern countries, a major objective of Ostpolitik was to boost trade and economic activity. This endeavour entailed a new approach to Cold War interaction and at the same time revived the economic co-operation that had existed before the Second World War. As a result of industrialization, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Germany had evolved into the largest trading partner of its Eastern neighbours and the main financial investor in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. In the 1920s and 1930s, the Weimar Republic and then the Third Reich developed an extensive network of trade agreements and established Germany as the economic hub of the region. However, the destructive and genocidal occupation policy of Nazi Germany during the Second World War and the mass exodus of ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe a er 1945 severed the existing trade contacts and le no economic network on which to build.23 With the Cold War, the economy became politicized and served mainly as a tool to implement the respective political agendas of the Eastern and the Western camps. West German policy followed the same trend. Even if,

136 | Reconciliation Road

on specific occasions, Chancellors Adenauer and Erhard a empted to use trade as a positive incentive for co-operation with the East, until the late 1960s Bonn applied its economic strength mainly as a means of pressure, in the (vain) hope of forcing the East into making political concessions. The approach of Brandt’s social-liberal coalition offering economic co-operation with no political strings a ached therefore constituted a paradigm shi in trade relations between West Germany and the East. Bonn’s goal was no longer to use the economy as a tool of negative sanction but as a positive incentive with the promise of mutual benefits. Leading figures of German industry like O o Wolff von Amerongen, representing the Federation of German Industries, and Berthold Beitz, the head of Krupp, wholeheartedly supported the policy of Brandt’s government through their personal contacts with Eastern representatives.24 The development of economic ties was consistent with the rationale that Brandt had outlined at Harvard University and in Tutzing in 1962–63. He believed that the East–West conflict would not be resolved by military means but by co-operation and progress in the fields of economy, culture and science, aiming ‘to surmount and permeate the blocs’. Another, related goal of Ostpolitik was to improve the daily lives of the many people suffering from the consequences of the Second World War and the Cold War by facilitating East–West travel and se ling disputes over frontiers and the rights of refugees. In the early 1970s, the West German insistence on bilateral co-operation coincided with the Kremlin’s eagerness to invigorate the stagnating Eastern economies by means of Western expertise.25 As Go fried Niedhart has argued, the practical measures of Ostpolitik to transform relations with the peoples in the East were largely in line with the academic concept of ‘liberal peace’. A er all, Brandt pursued Ostpolitik based on a social-liberal coalition; he wished to develop East–West co-operation by means of trade relations and he believed in the pacifying effects of interdependence.26 Even if Brandt talked about reconciliation rather than liberal peace, it seems appropriate to comment on related elements in the la er concept. The roots of liberal peace go back to the Age of Enlightenment and particularly to Immanuel Kant and his thoughts on Perpetual Peace. In the twentieth century and during the Cold War, the ideas of liberal peace found expression in the Western belief that economic interdependence makes war unlikely because the consequences of war become too costly. According to the same argumentation, cultural exchange and regular contacts at the grassroots level reduce the risk of misunderstandings and cause people to be mindful of each other’s concerns. In sum, the concept holds that the likelihood of peace increases when contacts between nations intensify. Such ideas have gained wide acceptance and exerted strong influence, for example, on the formation of

Developing New Frameworks (1971–74) | 137

the European Communities and eventually the European Union.27 However, some caveats to the overall concept apply. Kenneth Waltz cautioned in 1979: Many seem to believe that a growing closeness of interdependence improves the chances of peace. But close interdependence means closeness of contact and raises the prospect of occasional conflict. The fiercest civil wars and the bloodiest international ones are fought within arenas populated by highly similar people whose affairs are closely knit … If interdependence grows at a pace that exceeds the development of central control, then interdependence hastens the occasion for war.28

Later criticism of the liberal peace concept reiterated the warning against hasty implementation of political and economic liberalization in countries lacking the necessary preconditions. Another line of criticism argues that peacebuilding through economic interdependence may serve to promote the neocolonial interests of the West. Notwithstanding these caveats, today’s peacebuilding specialists hardly see any valid alternatives to the liberal peace virtues of fostering interdependence and spreading democracy and free trade.29 Waltz’s observations essentially confirm the risk inherent in Brandt’s promotion of East–West interaction, a risk that is inevitable if the objective is reconciliation and not mere coexistence. Certainly, Ostpolitik did not intensify East–West interdependence in any hasty way. Rather, Western European a empts at establishing economic and cultural contacts through the Iron Curtain may have alleviated the structural shock occurring a er the end of the Cold War in the process of the EU’s Eastern enlargements towards formerly communist states. From the viewpoint of this book, Brandt’s fostering of trade and of scientific and cultural relations with the East was an important tool to prepare his longer-term objective of reconciliation. The institutionalizing of West German contacts with East Germany, the Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Bulgaria developed each at their own speed and involved varying types of co-operation. With East Germany, which was admi edly a special and yet crucial case, negotiations were particularly tedious but meaningful. Six months a er Stoph and Brandt had agreed in Kassel on a ‘pause for reflection’, on 27 November 1970 the German–German talks resumed with a meeting of the state secretaries Michael Kohl and Egon Bahr in East Berlin. The decision to return to the negotiation table was actually taken by the Soviet government, who wanted to ensure West German ratification of the Treaty of Moscow and therefore demanded advances on the German–German front. Brezhnev insisted on personally supervising the East German moves.30 For Bahr, who knew Kohl from the Berlin travel agreements in the early 1960s,

138 | Reconciliation Road

the start of the negotiations was rather unpleasant. ‘Michael Kohl was completely unsympathetic to me: coarse, stubborn, narrow-minded, awkward, complex ridden and devoid of humour.’ Nevertheless, the two men gradually developed a sense of personal trust when meeting no less than sixty times over the following two years, in East Berlin or Bonn, at fortnightly intervals until spring 1971 and somewhat less frequently thereafter. Importantly, Bahr and Kohl and their respective delegations met away from the cameras and even enjoyed some sightseeing together during the recesses, free from outside interference.31 Confirming Lederach’s argument, the secrecy of negotiations at an intermediate level provided the flexibility required to reach a consensus or formula acceptable to both sides, a feat that would have been difficult to achieve for the top leaders constantly in the public eye. At the same time, the two negotiators ranked high enough to have constant access to the respective decision-makers, although Kohl’s superiors (Ulbricht, then Honecker) o en depended on Moscow’s agreement.32 The marathon series of Bahr–Kohl negotiations eventually led to three treaties between the two German states. On 17 December 1971 they signed the Transit Accord, an extension of the Quadripartite Agreement defining the transit rules between West Germany and West Berlin. By May 1972, on behalf of their respective governments, Bahr and Kohl signed the Traffic Treaty regulating all forms of travel between East and West Germany. The most fundamental agreement, the Basic Treaty, was signed on 21 December 1972 and entered into force on 21 June 1973. It followed the examples of the Moscow and Warsaw Treaties and stipulated the inviolability of frontiers, good-neighbourly relations on the basis of equal rights, respect for the principles embodied in the UN Charter and a commitment to settling disputes exclusively by peaceful means. In addition, the Basic Treaty included the pledge of both German states to support disarmament and force reductions, with ‘the aim of general and complete disarmament … especially with regard to nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction’. Concerning the ‘national question’, the treaty merely referred to ‘differing views’ and stipulated respect for each other’s independence and autonomy.33 At the insistence of the East German government, Bahr and Kohl continued their regular meetings in order to prepare for the UN membership of both German states, which became a reality on 18 September 1973.34 The West German government recognized the German Democratic Republic according to public law – not international law – and maintained the formula that the ‘two states in Germany … are not foreign countries to each other’, but accepted international recognition of the GDR following UN membership. In November 1972, Brandt praised the Basic Treaty’s ful-

Developing New Frameworks (1971–74) | 139

filment of all the ‘twenty points of Kassel’ and commented optimistically that a er living ‘side by side’, East and West Germans eventually needed ‘to learn to live with each other’.35 However, with international recognition as an independent state, the GDR achieved the key objective that had motivated negotiations with Bonn. Henceforth, the East German leaders did not continue along the path of further rapprochement but demonstrated distance and ideological demarcation against West Germany. This policy line was already apparent in 1973, when some 3,000 East Germans with valid exit visas found themselves unable to travel to the West for mysterious reasons, despite previous agreement and substantial payments by Bonn. In December 1973 Brandt complained to Brezhnev that the GDR, having secured UN membership, made no further effort to normalize relations with West Germany. Much to Brandt’s and Bahr’s disappointment, the political relations between the two German governments fell into stagnation over the subsequent years.36 Hence the development was largely in line with theoretical expectations that recognition accentu-

FIGURE 5.1. East German border control of West Germans arriving at ‘Checkpoint Bravo’ (Drewitz-Dreilinden, Potsdam), 31 March 1972. Brandt’s Ostpolitik led to the facilitation of individual travel across the Iron Curtain, thereby significantly increasing the grassroots contacts between East and West. © BArch, Bild 183-L0331-0005 / Hartmut Reiche.

140 | Reconciliation Road

ates the difference between self and other. The GDR, which had built its identity in direct opposition to West Germany, upon achieving recognition emphasized its otherness and sought to widen the divide between the two. While recognition thus created an obstacle, it was nevertheless a necessary step towards Brandt’s goal of ‘inner reconciliation’ with the East German people, as refusing recognition would have served to perpetuate an aggressive element in the relationship.37 Perhaps the most significant success of the German–German negotiations was the facilitation of travel resulting from the Traffic Treaty. The number of annual visits from West Germany and West Berlin to the GDR burgeoned from slightly more than one million in 1971 to six million in 1973 and continued at this level for the rest of the decade. Many visitors came with their Western cars and even travelled to small East German villages; emigrants spent holidays in their hometowns, meeting relatives and sharing experiences of their lives in the West. About half of the six million visits per year were registered from West Berlin, the other half from West Germany. The visits were limited to thirty days and subject to fees, which became a valuable source of revenue for the GDR. In the other direction, from East to West Germany, restrictions applied except for pensioners; approved visits ‘for family emergencies’ numbered about 40,000 per year until 1982, when the visits from East to West showed a significant increase. Telephone conversations from West to East Germany surged from half a million in 1969 to six million in 1973 and twenty-three million in 1980. These numbers may illustrate that Ostpolitik did improve some conditions of daily life in a divided Germany. The vastly increased exchange at the grassroots also contributed to the feeling of togetherness in both parts of Germany, which was a key objective of Bahr’s strategy towards German unification.38 In West German contacts with the Soviet Union, economic issues played a particularly prominent role. When Leonid Brezhnev visited Bonn for the first time in May 1973, he declared that West Germany was destined to assume European leadership because of its economic potential and proposed bilateral trade agreements over long periods of thirty, forty or fi y years. He offered the FRG an abundant supply of Soviet oil and natural gas and envisaged large-scale joint projects for the processing of wood, cellulose, copper and aluminium, and the joint production of chemical fertilizers and steel. While Brandt appreciated the zeal for co-operation, he concluded that the Soviet leader overestimated the practical possibilities.39 In fact, obstacles to Brezhnev’s high-flying plans were already discernible before his Bonn visit. The profound differences between the Eastern and Western economic systems, coupled with the Soviet refusal to initiate the necessary domestic reforms, impeded the kind of large-scale co-operation

Developing New Frameworks (1971–74) | 141

for which Brezhnev was hoping. Political obstacles also emerged, for example in the form of Polish and East German objections to projects on joint energy production between Moscow and Bonn.40 Nevertheless, Brandt’s Ostpolitik and Brezhnev’s Western policy achieved several economic successes and raised East–West trade to new heights compared to the minimal level of the 1950s and 1960s. During Brandt’s chancellorship, West German and Soviet representatives concluded three major economic agreements: a trade deal on the construction of the first natural gas pipeline from Siberia to West Germany in February 1970; a long-term agreement on economic and industrial co-operation in May 1972; and a ten-year treaty on the development of joint economic, industrial and technical projects signed on the occasion of Brezhnev’s visit to Bonn in May 1973. For its part, the FRG concluded long-term trade treaties with Romania (December 1969), Poland and Hungary (October 1970), Czechoslovakia (December 1970) and Bulgaria (February 1971). These treaties also generated mixed commissions in charge of liberalizing East–West trade.41 The trade volume between West Germany and the Soviet Union rose from 2.9 billion (i.e. 2.9 thousand million) Deutschmark in 1970 to 10.2 billion in 1975 and 15.5 billion in 1980. Due to high Soviet demands the West German exports exceeded imports in the early 1970s, but the rise in oil prices and the increasing import of Soviet gas and oil led to a West German deficit in the balance of trade by the late 1970s. As of 1972, the FRG became the USSR’s leading Western trading partner. West Germany’s share of the foreign trade turnover of the Soviet Union increased from 2.5 per cent in 1970 to a record high of 6.1 per cent in 1980.42 West German trade with Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia almost quadrupled between 1968 and 1978 and showed the fastest growth rate compared to earlier and later periods of the Cold War. Relative to overall imports by the COMECON members Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Poland, Romania and Hungary, the share of Western imports grew from 27.2 per cent in 1970 to 37.4 per cent in 1974. In the other direction, from the aforementioned COMECON countries to the West, the share of total exports also increased, but only from 23.9 per cent (1970) to 28.6 per cent (1974).43 Beyond the fact that Ostpolitik led to the heyday of East–West trade during the Cold War, the ramifications of intensified economic exchange were interpreted in different ways. Successive US governments from Nixon to Reagan expressed concerns that Bonn might become politically vulnerable due to its dependence on Soviet gas and oil production. By contrast, from the viewpoint of West German Ostpolitik and its objectives, the increased economic exchange with the East led to various long-term benefits. For example, the precarious Polish economy and domestic pres-

142 | Reconciliation Road

sure on Gierek’s government to ‘import prosperity’ generated reliance on goods and technology from West Germany, which led to a web of economic contacts, contributed to building trust and thereby to transforming the Cold War antagonism. Moreover, Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia allowed individual enterprises to engage in direct economic exchange with West Germany, thereby liberalizing their foreign trade policies and opening the door to joint ventures with West German firms. Hence it seems valid to conclude that the origins of Germany’s present-day economic relations with Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia were indeed shaped by Brandt’s Ostpolitik.44 Economic contacts and particularly West German–Soviet trade relations also generated valuable political side-effects. Helmut Schmidt, who had promoted economic contacts across the Iron Curtain since the mid-1960s, perceived trade relations as an important tool of international stability. During Schmidt’s chancellorship, West Germany and the Soviet Union signed an agreement in May 1978 which stipulated industrial and technological co-operation for twenty-five years, and in November 1981 concluded a pipeline deal to import natural gas from Siberia. Schmidt commented that these trade agreements contributed to overcoming the past and securing peaceful relations, in the sense that both countries developed a genuine interest in each other’s prosperity. Hence, he firmly believed in the pacifying effect of economic interdependence. As Soviet oil and gas only covered some five per cent of West Germany’s energy consumption and West German–Soviet trade never exceeded a relatively low 2.8 per cent of the FRG’s foreign trade turnover, West Germany’s economic dependence on the Soviet Union in fact remained very limited. At the same time, the institutionalized economic contacts did provide permanent channels of exchange and communication between West Germany, the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, largely undisturbed even by the Cold War turmoil of the early 1980s.45 The preparation of a bilateral treaty preoccupied West German relations with Czechoslovakia until the end of Brandt’s chancellorship. Only a er three years of negotiation did the treaty finally become a reality, in December 1973. Even though the slow progress was the fault of both sides, the West German and the Czechoslovak governments eventually expressed regret at the delay in establishing a new basis for their bilateral relations.46 The final months of negotiation revolved around issues of West Berlin’s representation, however the main bone of contention remained the nullification of the Munich Agreement of 1938. Prague’s insistence on invalidating the accord ex tunc (from the beginning) would have meant that the Sudeten Germans had remained Czechoslovak citizens throughout the Second World War, and had thus betrayed their country when conscripted

Developing New Frameworks (1971–74) | 143

FIGURE 5.2. On 11 December 1973, Lubomír Štrougal (on the carpet, right) welcomed Willy Brandt (le ) to the airport Prague Ruzyne with military honours. Later the same day the two leaders signed the Treaty of Prague between Czechoslovakia and West Germany. © Bundesregierung / Lothar Schaack.

into the Wehrmacht; consequently, the expulsion of three million Sudeten Germans in 1945–46 would have been legitimate. Conversely, Bonn’s demand to nullify the Munich Agreement ex nunc (from now) would have entitled the expellees to return to their homeland and claim indemnities for their lost property. In the end, the Treaty of Prague was a compromise between the positions of West Germany and Czechoslovakia and declared the Munich Agreement ‘void with regard to their mutual relations’ but excluded ‘legal effects on natural or legal persons’ or on ‘the nationality of living or deceased persons’.47 Following the examples of Bonn’s previous treaties with Moscow and Warsaw, the Treaty of Prague ‘put an end once and for all to the disastrous past’ and stipulated ‘good-neighbourly relations’, the ‘inviolability’ of the common frontier and co-operation in the fields of economy, science, technology, transport, environmental protection, culture and sports. Brandt, Scheel and a sizeable West German delegation travelled to Prague for the signing ceremony on 11 December 1973, and Brandt tried his best to imbue the event with a special meaning. In his public appearances with Premier Lubomír Štrougal, First Secretary

144 | Reconciliation Road

Gustáv Husák and President Ludvík Svoboda, he repeatedly referred to the Nazi past and praised the reconciliation efforts by Czechs and Germans.48 In a live television broadcast from Prague, Brandt also addressed his fellow Germans: In signing the treaty, I have been conscious of the sum of suffering represented by what had actually preceded it: the suffering inflicted on Czechs and Slovaks by the brutality of alleged Übermenschen; the suffering of the Germans who have had to pay the price for the injustice of Nazism … By pledging to refrain from any use of force we could not eradicate the acts of violence. But we were able to build a bridge over the abyss … Yesterday’s guilt, which no words can banish, will not be strong enough to deter our peoples from venturing upon reconciliation.49

Despite this estimable speech, in hindsight Brandt deplored the ‘superficially routine’ character of the proceedings and the overall ‘cold’ atmosphere in Prague.50 The historian and journalist Peter Bender, who closely followed and supported Brandt’s policy, was quick to note that the initial spirit of Ostpolitik had largely dissipated by the time of the Prague summit, because of juristic quibbling over the nullification of the Munich Agreement. Similarly, the Czechoslovak evaluation of relations with West Germany was not very positive. Premier Štrougal commented on 13 December 1973 that he expected various problems to arise in the relations with Bonn and a few months later, when ratifying the Treaty of Prague, the Czechoslovak Parliament expressed regret at the failure of West Germany to reciprocate Prague’s concessions.51 Beyond the development of trade with the FRG, the rigid Czechoslovak government did not allow much rapprochement over the following years. The results of cultural or scientific co-operation were therefore limited to personal contacts between West German and Czech writers, notably dissidents. In the mid-1960s, two West German–Czech organizations had initiated efforts to update historical textbooks in a spirit of reconciliation, but the Warsaw Pact invasion of Prague in August 1968 put an end to these activities. Similar initiatives re-emerged only twenty years later, when the end of the Cold War enabled a sustained process of reconciliation in a new political framework. Thus, with regard to Czechoslovakia, the concrete accomplishments of Brandt’s Ostpolitik included the normalization of diplomatic relations, extrication from the heavy burden of the Munich Agreement, the expansion of trade and a limited liberalization of individual travel. Until the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, hundreds of thousands of West Germans were indeed able to visit their former homeland in Czechoslovakia, to reconnect with acquaintances from their youth and to pay their respects at the graves of their parents.52

Developing New Frameworks (1971–74) | 145

Ten days a er the signing of the Treaty of Prague, in mid-December 1973, West Germany officially established diplomatic relations with Bulgaria, Hungary and Finland. Co-operation between Bonn and Helsinki traditionally functioned smoothly and the exchange of ambassadors was a mere formality. Hungary was particularly keen to develop economic relations with the West in order to improve its standard of living, and for Bulgaria economic considerations were likewise a prime concern. Brandt’s Ostpolitik had opened up a welcome opportunity for both countries to develop closer (economic) ties to West Germany and Western Europe without tainting their loyalty to the Warsaw Pact or offending Moscow. Against this background, West German economic co-operation with Bulgaria and Hungary had fared well during Brandt’s chancellorship and political obstacles were few, but for the establishment of official relations the Soviet leadership had insisted on a temporal linkage with the Treaty of Prague. In practical terms, by 21 December 1973 the West German trade missions in Budapest and Sofia were converted into embassies, with no special treaties needed with Hungary or Bulgaria. With the exception of Albania, which preferred to remain aloof, West Germany had developed official contacts with all Eastern European countries. In June 1974 Brandt commented that the making of treaties with Eastern Europe was complete, the agreements now waiting to be filled with life and made ‘comfortable’.53 Regarding bilateral co-operation with Poland, Ostpolitik gradually achieved some progress on diplomatic, cultural and scientific levels. In the first years a er Brandt’s historic visit to Poland and the signing of the Treaty of Warsaw in December 1970, the prospects for a rapid improvement in bilateral relations were actually rather bleak. Gierek’s government preferred not to make any official statement on its German policy until the Bundestag ratified the Treaty of Warsaw (in May 1972) and only in mid-September 1972 did the two countries establish diplomatic relations with each other. Even therea er, contacts at the highest level were difficult. Gierek and Brandt never met face to face, partly because of Brandt’s hectic schedule and because Gierek laid down important preconditions with regard to reparation payments.54 The overall a itude of the Polish leadership towards West German Ostpolitik remained ambivalent. On the one hand, Warsaw hoped for a bilateral solution to the many legal issues stemming from the Second World War and for West German economic and technological input to modernize the stagnant Polish economy. On the other hand, the Polish government primarily perceived Ostpolitik as a political means to further German national interests and feared the infiltration of dangerous social democratic ideas undermining the statecontrolled information policy.

146 | Reconciliation Road

When debating the ratification of the Treaty of Warsaw in 1971–72, various deputies of the Sejm (the Polish Parliament) expressed concerns over an expansion of German influence, warned against losing control over the developments and emphatically rejected any prospect of German reunification.55 Polish journalists observed that Brandt’s successful combination of politics and moral virtues had actually increased West German authority in both the East and the West. From the viewpoint of the Polish press, a shi occurred in early 1973, when more conservative and less reformist tendencies gained ground within the SPD and the West German government. In the same vein, Polish ambassador Lucjan Piatkowski complained in June 1973 that Ostpolitik no longer dominated Bonn’s political agenda. A er the election of Helmut Schmidt as the new West German chancellor in May 1974, commentators in Warsaw remarked that the SPD had lost much of its political profile and was acting very much like a conservative party.56 Since 1973, Warsaw and Bonn had been discussing the many controversial issues in their bilateral relations as a combined package. Egon Bahr, who again represented the German side, almost lost his temper when Gierek’s representative, Franciszek Szlachcic, demanded ten billion Deutschmark in war indemnities without commi ing to any humanitarian concessions towards the ethnic Germans in Poland. Helmut Schmidt now supervised Bahr’s negotiations, as minister of finance and, a er May 1974, as chancellor. Eventually, Schmidt and Gierek reached a breakthrough understanding during a late-night discussion on 1–2 August 1975, on the occasion of the East–West summit in Helsinki. The resulting agreements signed two months later in Warsaw included 120,000 to 125,000 exit permits for ethnic Germans in Poland over the following four years, a lump sum compensation of 1.3 billion Deutschmark for Polish pension rights and one billion Deutschmark in credits for the Polish economy. At this point the relations between Bonn and Warsaw improved considerably. Gierek paid a state visit to West Germany in June 1976, followed in November 1977 by a return visit of a large West German delegation to Warsaw and Auschwitz-Birkenau. At the site of the former Nazi death camp, Chancellor Schmidt emphasized the special responsibility of the Germans to actively contribute to a peaceful future, based on full recognition of past crimes.57 The Polish side also agreed to a variety of measures towards reconciliation. In 1976, a Mixed Commission was set up to organize cultural exchange, Bremen and Gdańsk initiated a campaign of town twinning and a group of Polish and West German professors dra ed a reform of school textbooks. In 1977, Marion Dönhoff and Karl Dedecius organized the first German-Polish Forum in Bonn, which led to the creation of the German

Developing New Frameworks (1971–74) | 147

Polish Institute in Darmstadt and the sponsoring of literary exchange. The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN) had already started their co-operation in 1970, other institutions followed later in the decade. The establishment of diplomatic relations in 1972 simplified the visa formalities and the flow of West German visitors to Poland started to grow considerably. Even if travel in the Western direction remained under the strict control of the Polish authorities, Gierek’s government nevertheless allowed several thousand young Poles to visit the West as tourists. Lily Gardner Feldman’s claims regarding the significance of these achievements are plausible. Despite the severe constraints of the Cold War, which surfaced again in the early 1980s, the process of the German–Polish institutionalization of the 1970s initiated a network of co-operation that eventually developed into a framework for comprehensive societal reconciliation, some twenty years later.58

Multilateralizing Ostpolitik The declared objective of Ostpolitik was to overcome the division of Europe. In order to achieve this ambitious long-term goal, logic would require the creation of pan-European structures. Until the early 1970s European frameworks were organized along demarcated lines between East and West, with the accompanying military, political and social structures. In the mid-1970s the initiation of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe signalled a novel development towards a pan-European framework, yet provoked fears of an erosion of the military alliances. West Germany’s NATO partners in particular suspected Egon Bahr of pursuing the covert objective of abolishing the military alliances and they were adamant in their objections to such plans. Brandt’s loyalty to NATO also came under scrutiny in the process. The categorical reactions by the Western partners serve as proof that in the 1970s and during the Cold War in general, trying to submerge Europe’s division into two opposing military camps was an illusion. The rapprochement of Eastern and Western Europe reached its zenith on 1 August 1975, when thirty-five heads of state and government convened in Finland and signed the Helsinki Final Act. The leaders of all the European states except Albania were present, as well as the US president and the Canadian prime minister. Beyond the symbolism of the top leaders of East and West spending three days together on neutral ground, the sixty-page Final Act embodied a significant pan-European consensus on how to organize mutual relations and secure East–West coexistence. The document included topics as diverse as air pollution and marriage

148 | Reconciliation Road

between citizens of different states and was structured in terms of three ‘baskets’. Basket I contained the declaration on inter-state relations and the inviolability of frontiers, measures to increase military transparency and the pivotal principles on human rights and fundamental freedoms (the ‘security’ dimension). Basket II specified economic, scientific, technological and environmental co-operation (the ‘economic’ dimension). The long-debated Basket III included guidelines on personal contacts and the free movement of people and co-operation in the fields of culture and education (the ‘human’ dimension). With the benefit of hindsight, academics and politicians widely agree that the Helsinki Final Act of August 1975, which was a political declaration rather than a binding treaty, represented a breakthrough in the East–West conflict and had far-reaching effects.59 This Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) entailed much more than a one-off meeting of the top leaders and the signing of the Final Act. Diplomatic negotiations between the thirty-five states started in November 1972 in Helsinki; working groups on the three baskets gathered in Geneva in September 1973 and negotiated almost continuously until July 1975. In the course of this three-year preparation, the junior experts had frequent and extensive informal talks in the corridors and eventually formed a ‘multilateral fabric of people’ dra ing the CSCE texts. According to the report of a Finnish participant, the negotiations started within an East–West framework but in the process transformed into a network of pan-European action, which offered opportunities for frank discussion and even for Eastern European delegates to envisage their political prospects. For example, the Polish negotiators explored ‘to what extent religious freedom could be established in Poland and what the limits for Moscow were’.60 The CSCE displayed several features of the pan-European network Brandt had hoped to create with his Ostpolitik, a framework involving East and West that might eventually embody the European peace order to which he aspired. In a broader sense, the objective to shape the future co-operation of all European countries also corresponded to ideas Brandt was regularly discussing with his friends Bruno Kreisky (Austria) and Olof Palme (Sweden), all aspiring to imbue international co-operation with social democratic ideals. Thus, it is not surprising that Brandt had been among the first and most prominent Western leaders to endorse Brezhnev’s project of holding a pan-European security conference. At a NATO ministerial meeting in April 1969, just a few weeks a er the Warsaw Pact’s public proposal, Brandt recommended ‘building on the willingness expressed in the Budapest Appeal and making some proposals of our own’.61 Moscow had on previous occasions broached the idea of a European security conference, apparently aiming to exclude the United

Developing New Frameworks (1971–74) | 149

States and to drive a wedge between the transatlantic partners. The new feature of the Budapest Appeal of March 1969 was the conciliatory tone and the absence of recriminations against revanchist Germans or imperialist Americans. Indeed, as subsequent developments showed, the Kremlin no longer tried to force the US out of Europe. Moscow’s objectives were now to enhance Soviet international influence and domestic credibility by instigating the CSCE, meant to become the peace conference that never took place a er the Second World War. In early May 1969, hoping to establish Finland’s neutral status, the Finnish government invited the European and North American states to Helsinki to hold preparatory talks for a European security conference. A er initial hesitations, by 1970–71 the Western allies came to agree that the Eastern initiative offered opportunities to set conditions and use participation in the CSCE as leverage, notably to influence the Soviet position on Berlin and Germany. Within the Western camp, the support for holding the conference came from the European, rather than the US side. Washington accepted the CSCE merely as a means to maintain good bilateral contacts with Moscow and to improve relations with the transatlantic allies. By contrast, Bonn and Paris actively endorsed the project, as did the many smaller Western European countries, preferring co-operation to confrontation. French President Pompidou made the CSCE a cornerstone of his foreign policy in order to develop communication with Moscow and at the same time to pursue the Gaullist idea of overcoming the bipolar system and the partition of Europe. An important objective of the French government was to weaken the Soviet grip on Eastern Europe and to encourage the individual and national aspirations of the people, however gradually and without offending the Kremlin.62 Willy Brandt contributed to the CSCE by lobbying in favour of the conference and, perhaps decisively, by accomplishing some of the groundwork through his Ostpolitik. In signing the Non-Proliferation Treaty and renouncing any German possession of nuclear weapons in November 1969, Brandt fulfilled an Eastern condition specifically mentioned in the Budapest Appeal. While Bonn’s recognition of the GDR as a state and the German–German Basic Treaty of December 1972 rendered possible the participation of both German states in the Helsinki conference, the Treaties of Moscow, Warsaw and Prague disentangled the tortuous border issues and established a political consensus acceptable to East and West. The main elements of Bonn’s Eastern Treaties figured almost identically in the Helsinki Final Act; notably, the commitment to refrain from the threat or use of force, the inviolability of frontiers in Europe, the respect for the territorial integrity of the signatory states, the lasting promotion of détente and declared co-operation in the economic, scientific, technological and

150 | Reconciliation Road

cultural fields.63 These similarities were no coincidence. When starting to prepare the CSCE, the Finnish government used the documents resulting from Ostpolitik as their working basis, because both East and West had sanctioned their content. Especially important was the ‘Bahr Paper’ of May 1970, elaborated by Egon Bahr and Andrei Gromyko. In order to ensure that the CSCE could actually take place, Finnish President Urho Kekkonen was in regular contact with many of the invited participants and personally visited Moscow and Washington. Osmo Apunen, at the time assistant director of political affairs in the Finnish Foreign Ministry, recalls: We used the Bahr Paper to get an understanding with the Soviets. We went to Moscow and asked if it was all right to go ahead on the basis of the Bahr Paper and they said, ‘It’s all right but’. Then we continued to work on this basis … At the Finnish Foreign Ministry, people were reading the Bahr Paper all the time because it included all the conceptual elements. We also studied the Moscow Treaty and the Quadripartite Agreement on Berlin. The concepts in these documents were the basis of Finnish policy and also of the Helsinki Final Act. The Final Act was a sort of multilateral version of these earlier documents.64

While the Helsinki Final Act was a much longer and more detailed instrument than the Eastern Treaties or the Bahr Paper, the report of the former Finnish official vividly illustrates the close relationship between Ostpolitik and CSCE and the importance of the groundwork accomplished by Brandt’s government. The quote above also shows that the West German idea of ‘multilateralizing or Europeanizing’ Ostpolitik through the Helsinki process met with some success. Until summer 1971 Bonn used the CSCE primarily as a means to guide the outcome of its own Eastern policy, but by September 1971 had changed its perspective and launched an active campaign to promote and influence the CSCE preparations. In early 1972, the Auswärtiges Amt produced an avalanche of contributions through the respective commi ees of NATO and the European Community. Officials in other capitals, like Rodric Braithwaite at the British Foreign Office, gained the impression that the Germans now regarded the CSCE ‘as the only way of carrying on the East/West dialogue’ a er the end of the bilateral phase of Ostpolitik. In 1971–72 and under Scheel’s leadership, the dominant approach in the Auswärtiges Amt was to view the CSCE as the inception of a European peace order that might become the means to end the Cold War and secure peace in Europe.65 However, neither Scheel nor Brandt ever specified what exactly the notion of a European peace order referred to, or who (apart from the German and Eastern peoples) needed to reconcile in order to achieve it.

Developing New Frameworks (1971–74) | 151

Another distinctive and related feature of Bonn’s CSCE policy was the pronounced will to include negotiations on military security and the reduction of troops and armaments into the Helsinki process. Paul Frank, state secretary in the Auswärtiges Amt, in October 1971 affirmed that a European security conference without negotiations on Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions (MBFR) was simply ‘unthinkable’.66 Chancellor Brandt repeatedly emphasized the importance of including MBFR in the CSCE, for example when meeting Brezhnev in Crimea, in September 1971. Brandt proposed to apply a scheme of arms and troop reductions to the two German states and a (non-specified) selection of other European countries. According to Brandt’s preparatory notes for the Crimea meeting, at the same occasion he also advanced the idea of establishing a permanent CSCE organ in Berlin and endorsed the Finnish initiative to hold the conference in Helsinki.67 Egon Bahr had expressed similar but more detailed thoughts during the previous months. In a conversation with Adjunct Romanian Foreign Minister George Macovescu in November 1970, he argued that the CSCE needed a permanent secretariat and that this would be best located in East and West Berlin. When meeting with Martin Hillenbrand in the US Department of State in June 1971, Bahr specified that the disarmament area would necessarily include the two German states and Czechoslovakia, preferably also the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark, Italy, Poland, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. He envisaged both conventional and nuclear arms reductions. In response, Hillenbrand leaned towards restricting the disarmament area to the ‘Rapacki zone’ encompassing the FRG, the GDR, Poland and Czechoslovakia.68 Several elements mentioned here correspond to Bahr’s ‘model C’ as outlined in the secret memorandum of June 1968. At the time, he had conceived the objective of a new European security system that would eventually replace the two military alliances and facilitate German reunification. Troop reductions and the denuclearization of the two German states and adjacent countries in East and West were central aspects of this plan. Likewise, Bahr’s paper foresaw the establishment of a European security council in East and West Berlin as the central organ of the new security structure.69 The question of whether Bahr’s memorandum of 1968 actually represented the secret blueprint for Brandt’s Ostpolitik became a topic of public debate in 1973. Importantly, it had by then become obvious that Washington and Moscow rejected Bonn’s demand to include negotiations on arms and troop reductions in the Helsinki process. At the Crimea meeting in September 1971, Brezhnev had already told Brandt that MBFR concerned in particular the leaders of the two blocs. When visiting Bonn in May 1973, the Soviet leader had dismissed any idea of linking CSCE and MBFR because it would only ‘slow down the consolidation of security in Europe’.70

152 | Reconciliation Road

Brezhnev’s concept of détente was built on the formula ‘peace through strength’ and foreshadowed no reduction of Soviet troops or weapons in Eastern Europe. However, he had a genuine interest in averting the danger of a major war with NATO and subscribed to direct arms negotiations with the United States.71 The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) between Washington and Moscow had started on Nixon’s initiative in 1969 and led to a first series of treaties (SALT I) in May 1972, imposing limits on antiballistic missile systems and on launching facilities for intercontinental ballistic missiles. On the occasion of the signing ceremony in Moscow, Nixon and Brezhnev also agreed to organize the CSCE and MBFR negotiations separately. The other NATO members had only minimal influence on the US decision. When talking to Brandt in Washington, on 1 May 1973, Nixon made it clear that he alone took the important decisions regarding MBFR. Nixon was under domestic pressure to engage in force reduction talks with Moscow, as Senator Mike Mansfield’s initiative to halve the number of US troops in Europe enjoyed considerable support. Hence, Nixon primarily promoted MBFR to demonstrate good intentions rather than to achieve substantial results. A er an unofficial exchange of views in January 1973, delegations from NATO and the Warsaw Pact convened officially in Vienna in October 1973 to discuss the planning of troop reductions in Europe.72 The Vienna negotiations soon became embroiled in debates over exact troop numbers, lingered on for years and were eventually abandoned at the end of the Cold War having produced no significant results. For the intended multilateralization of West German Ostpolitik, the failure to include disarmament in the Helsinki negotiations or to initiate European troop reductions was a serious setback.73 In addition, in March 1973 an article in the US journal Orbis gave rise to widespread doubts about Brandt’s and especially Bahr’s motivation for promoting disarmament. The author of the article, Walter Hahn, had interviewed Egon Bahr in January 1969 and now published his notes accompanied by extensive sections of interpretation, speculating that Bahr’s concepts did not actually originate from Brandt’s office but from Eastern governments. Accordingly, Bahr appeared to be the implementer of a prearranged scheme aiming at the dissolution of the military alliances and at German reunification. Hahn further argued that reconciliation with the East was not an end in itself but merely a tool in the secret grand design of Ostpolitik.74 Looking back on his interview with Hahn, Bahr regre ed that he had been so frank in sharing the thoughts developed by his planning office.75 In 1973, the Orbis article provoked a storm in the German media. Was this the bo om line of Brandt’s Ostpolitik? The chancellery tried hard to dismiss the discussion as irrelevant, but the controversy only increased when Bahr’s 1968 paper on European security was leaked to the press. In

Developing New Frameworks (1971–74) | 153

September 1973, the pictorial Quick published large parts of it under the misleading title ‘How Egon Bahr Wants to Neutralize Germany’. Bahr had to explain himself to the Bundestag, and the CDU/CSU pressured Brandt to publicly reject the policy goals outlined in ‘Model C’ and to relieve Bahr of his duties. Brandt did neither. The official justifications only pointed out that Bahr’s study was old, hypothetical and not aiming at neutrality, and that Chancellor Adenauer (CDU) had also perceived the dissolution of NATO as a long-term possibility. Even journalists a empting to see beyond the bi er hostilities between the political parties concluded that the Brandt government offered rather flimsy explanations for this serious ma er.76 The German media also voiced concern over the negative impact on the French, who closely monitored these debates. President Pompidou had been opposed to German disarmament plans since taking office and, perturbed by the Hahn affair, in June 1973 urged Brandt to answer, ‘the most fundamental of all questions’ about his long-term ideas on Germany’s reunification: ‘How do you perceive this future?’ Brandt’s evasive explanation did not seem to satisfy the French President. According to French press reports collected by German diplomats, Pompidou le the meeting with the impression that ‘Germany has only one objective: reunification; that is, withdrawal from NATO and the European Community’.77 However, the documents of the French Foreign Ministry suggest that this affair caused no permanent harm. Paris and Bonn shared interests in developing East–West contacts and the French diplomacy emphasized, by the end of 1973, that Chancellor Brandt was pursuing his policy of détente in close collaboration with his European and Atlantic partners. Egon Bahr, who visited Paris in November 1973 to mend fences, might have had some ‘neutralizing’ tendencies according to the French analysis, but a German ‘slide towards the East’ no longer appeared as a danger.78 In autumn 1973, the foreign office in London likewise interpreted Bahr’s concepts as involving potential dangers for Western security and as an incentive to ‘ensure that the FRG remains locked into the Community and the NATO Alliance’, but not as a cause for serious apprehension. Nicholas Henderson, the UK ambassador to West Germany, argued in a detailed analysis that the Orbis and Quick articles conveyed mostly correct views of Bahr, whom he described as the chief architect of Ostpolitik and Brandt’s closest associate. At the same time, Henderson concluded that Bahr’s views were ‘so visionary and long-term as to be impracticable in the foreseeable future’.79 When Bahr officially visited the United Kingdom for the first time in October 1973, he duly stated that Western European unity took priority over the elusive goal of German reunification. The argumentation of Prime Minister Edward Heath on this occasion corre-

154 | Reconciliation Road

sponded to his overall policy towards West German Ostpolitik. He welcomed Bonn’s contributions to European détente on condition that they were incorporated into the wider complex of East–West interaction. In his memoirs, Brandt surmised that London had harboured fewer suspicions against his Ostpolitik than had Paris or Washington, yet archival research has shown that the pronounced scepticism of the British government gave way to more positive views only a er the initial phase of Ostpolitik, in the sense that Brandt’s policy increased the resolve of the European partners to enlarge the European Community.80 Washington, and particularly Henry Kissinger, was most vehement in rejecting the idea of modifying Europe’s security structures. When talking to NATO Secretary General Joseph Luns in April 1973, Kissinger dismissed Bahr’s dra plans to dissolve the military blocs as ‘romantic ideas’ and estimated that ‘to wreck NATO’ was the only thing the Germans had le to offer Moscow. He concluded: ‘if the Germans go that route they will be crushed. If there is one basis to unify Western Europe, it is on an anti-German basis.’81 Ever since Brandt took office as West German chancellor, the longterm effects of Ostpolitik had been a major concern for Nixon’s government. In late 1970, a detailed study by the US State Department drew special attention to the uncertainties in East–West relations resulting from a new relationship between West Germany and the East. According to this study, a er an initial period of three to five years the West Germans might start to use NATO membership and the US troop strength in Germany as bargaining chips in negotiations with Moscow. However, the State Department anticipated that Moscow would neither abandon the communist regime in East Germany nor accept any relaxation of Soviet military control over Eastern Europe. The division of Europe would therefore persist even in the longer term.82 By 1973 these predictions of Soviet behaviour had proved largely correct. Whenever US or NATO representatives (reluctantly) approached Moscow to discuss force reductions in Europe, the Soviet leadership immediately dropped the topic as if any kind of withdrawal would endanger Soviet control of Eastern Europe. To some extent, Bonn’s Ostpolitik and expectation that MBFR would relax the discipline in Eastern Europe may actually have contributed to the failure of MBFR. Overall, none of the Four Powers was in favour of reducing troops or arms during Brandt’s chancellorship. Kissinger emphasized in his memoirs that Washington made permanent efforts ‘to mute the latent incompatibility’ between the aims of Ostpolitik and Germany’s Atlantic ties. Yet he also acknowledged that ‘in the long term Brandt’s aim of conciliation in Central Europe was historically correct’ even if sometimes pursued with too much enthusiasm.83 From the academic perspective, the West German objectives of gradual and controlled disarmament and of creating new structures incorporating

Developing New Frameworks (1971–74) | 155

both sides may appear as positive and creative contributions to reconciliation processes. Such transformations would correspond to a relatively thick stage of reconciliation (stage three). At the time, however, these ideas conflicted with the objectives of the major powers involved in the Cold War and did not lead to any tangible result. The Western allies also doubted Bahr’s mastery of international security and tended to consider his concepts as ‘visionary nonsense in military terms’, to quote a British official. In the context of reconciliation, the greatest merit of Bahr’s concepts was arguably to project a common future for Eastern and Western Europe and to envisage a ‘we’ that would encompass even the security dimension. As such, and considering Bahr’s sincerity in pursuing the task, the objective of a new European security system might indeed have facilitated the East–West exchange initiated by Brandt’s Ostpolitik.84 Scholars have presented numerous and o en contradictory interpretations of whether the aspiration to abolish the military blocs was an integral part of Chancellor Brandt’s Ostpolitik. The arguments include unequivocal dismissal that these plans ever played a role, affirmations that creating a new European security system was indeed one of Brandt’s essential objectives and more cautious analyses emphasizing that in the early phase of his chancellorship Brandt’s policy was driven by the long-term aim to abolish the military alliances.85 The contention here is that Brandt, as chancellor, wished to keep open the option of a new European security system for the longer-term future and was sympathetic towards this objective, but did not pursue it singlemindedly in the sense of a predetermined master plan. The academic tendency to dissociate Bahr’s plans from Brandt’s ideas is not convincing; Bahr had developed his programmatic concepts by continuously taking account of Brandt’s assumptions. Brandt considered Bahr the ‘conceptually most capable’ of his advisors and consistently entrusted him with the major planning tasks of Ostpolitik.86 As chancellor, Brandt relied on Bahr to dra his foreign policy programme and specifically to conduct the key negotiations with Eastern leaders, even in the face of harsh criticism from domestic opponents. Bahr’s political commitment to Brandt was total and, in an important sense, the two men needed each other. Bahr lacked the popular appeal of a frontman and caused controversies whenever he spoke out, seemingly incapable of avoiding public disapproval. While Bahr always tended towards ‘apodictic statements’, Brandt had a ‘different thinking style’ and liked to express himself more vaguely, thereby avoiding political pitfalls. Peter Brandt perceived the relationship between his father and Egon Bahr as very close, personally and politically, the difference being that the la er thought in stricter and more systematic terms. For Willy Brandt, Egon Bahr was ‘important as someone who

156 | Reconciliation Road

presented him with clear conceptual structures – which is not to say that he [Brandt] necessarily or exactly applied them, but they were important points of reference for him’. In the political tandem with Brandt, Bahr’s quality as a ‘bold thinker who did not shrink from pondering the less palatable’ was of special importance.87 In the late 1960s, Willy Brandt had wished to actively explore whether the abolition of the military blocs could be a valid alternative for the future, but as West German chancellor he formulated his foreign policy goals more cautiously and adapted his vocabulary to suit Western parlance soon a er taking office. Brandt referred to the objective of a European peace order in his first governmental declaration and in his Report on the State of the Nation in January 1970, and again in April 1970, when visiting Washington, he declared that he aimed at a European peace order to overcome the partition of Europe. Therea er the term ceased to occur in his official statements and even in his internal documents. Brandt’s governmental declaration of January 1973 included the European peace order as a notion formerly in use. Similarly, in an interview in September 1971, he cautioned the German public against creating the impression that the Germans intended to tell others how Europe should look in the future and declined to answer questions about a possible abolition of the military blocs, arguing that such ideas might only become relevant for future generations.88 Brandt’s a itude when meeting Eastern leaders also changed from what it had been in the grand coalition era. For example, during a conversation with the Romanian official Macovescu in June 1969, he had envisaged the possibility of the blocs becoming dispensable; but meeting the same man again three years later, he refused to continue their previous discussion and emphasized West Germany’s and Romania’s loyalty to their respective alliances. It appears that Brandt’s general reluctance to explore the issue was not only because of his responsibilities as chancellor or his political interest in supporting NATO, but also because a er the launch of Ostpolitik he had reappraised the international realities. In light of the sources, Brandt’s statement in May 1973, when meeting Brezhnev in Bonn, seems to be a genuine expression of his position as chancellor: ‘Maybe, at some point in the future, the two military blocs will cease to exist, but for the time being they do exist and for things like [the MBFR talks in] Vienna, this is still preferable to chaos.’89 Brandt’s reassessment was in line with his policy of ‘small steps’, in the sense that each step was building on the realities achieved by the previous one and corresponded to his perception of the evolving policy goals pursued by the Four Powers. A er Charles de Gaulle had expressed grave doubts about the future of NATO in the 1960s, French Foreign Minister Maurice Schumann declared in December 1972 that ‘NATO is irreplace-

Developing New Frameworks (1971–74) | 157

able’.90 As to US foreign policy, a substantial withdrawal of troops from Germany had become less likely by the early 1970s, even if Brandt confided to Pompidou, regretfully, that he expected the United States to reduce their physical presence in Europe by the end of the decade. Brandt’s office correctly understood that the launch of West German Ostpolitik had imbued NATO with additional significance, since Washington wanted to ensure that the FRG remained a part of the West.91 Finally, despite Moscow’s official support on the Rapacki proposals in the 1950s and 1960s, Ostpolitik brought to light that the Soviet Union was actually opposed to any modification of the military structures in Europe. Bonn already concluded from the negotiations on the Treaty of Moscow, in August 1970, that the Soviet leaders considered NATO and the presence of US troops in Europe as being in Moscow’s interest, because these pillars of the military structure secured the status quo and thereby Soviet control over Eastern Europe. Both Brandt and Bahr regularly emphasized this standpoint when meeting with their Western allies.92 The idea of working towards abolishing the military blocs thus became impractical for the time being, even if Brandt never relinquished it as an option for the long-term future and thoroughly re-examined the issue during the 1980s. Brandt once explained that, when planning German foreign policy, ‘I am not in a position to choose the most beautiful from many beautiful things; I have to do what is possible.’ Hence there was an important element of realism in Brandt’s design of foreign policy, while the concepts originally developed by Bahr might represent a normative blueprint, which he might or might not choose to apply. Moreover, Brandt perceived long-term developments as unpredictable and insisted that ‘it is useless to speculate about the future’.93 Accordingly, his policy of small steps appears as an approach continuously in the making and developed step by step, rather than as the implementation of a prearranged action plan. The fundamental approach of Ostpolitik thus corresponded to the inherently unpredictable nature of reconciliation.

Notes 1. J.W. von Goethe, Wilhelm Meister’s Journeyman Years, in J.W. von Goethe, Goethe’s Works, Illustrated by the Best German Artists (Philadelphia: G. Barrie, 1885), 5: 150. 2. Loth, Overcoming the Cold War, 122. Ha endorn, Coming of Age, 162. 3. E. Noelle and E.P. Neumann (eds), Jahrbu der öffentli en Meinung 1968–1973 (Allensba : Verlag für Demoskopie, 1974), 570–83. 4. Meeting Brandt–Pompidou, 3 July 1970, AAPD 1970(2): 1,074 (quote). Brandt, People and Politics, 414. Filitov, ‘USSR and FRG’, 136.

158 | Reconciliation Road

5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

11.

12. 13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18. 19.

20. 21. 22. 23. 24.

25.

Ramsbotham et al., Conflict Resolution, 304–5. Schaap, Political Reconciliation, 75 (quote), 84. Brandt interview with Der Spiegel, 27 September 1971, Berliner Ausgabe 6: 410. Schaap, Political Reconciliation, 122–23, quoting Zenon Bankowski. Ibid., 62–65. Soutou, Cinquante Ans, 508. Similarly, but emphasizing the US role: J. Hanhimäki, The Flawed Architect: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 87. Memo on FRG and MBFR, ‘Service des Pactes’, 24 May 1973, box 3,005, RFA, Europe 1971–76, AMAE. Meeting Brandt-Pompidou, 21 June 1973, AAPD 1973(2): 1,021–22. See also Miard-Delacroix, Willy Brandt, 177–78. Kissinger to State Secretary Paul Frank in 1970, quoted by Brandt, Erinnerungen, 189. Meeting Kissinger–Lovestone, 25 April 1973 (long quote), box 1,027, HAK Memcons, National security council files, Nixon Library, Yorba Linda. H. Kissinger, The White House Years (Boston: Li le, Brown, 1979), 530 (short quote), 416. Quadripartite Agreement on Berlin, 3 September 1971, h ps://www.cvce.eu/content/ publication/2003/3/12/9bfcb5f5-8e0d-46ee-9f7f-8e9a7c945fa7/publishable_en.pdf (last accessed 30 March 2020) (Part I.2 and Part II.B for the quotes). H.M. Harrison, ‘Berlin and the Cold War Struggle over Germany’, in A.M. Kalinovsky and C. Daigle (eds), The Routledge Handbook of the Cold War (London: Routledge, 2014), 56–73. Barzel speech, plenary session 06/182, 26 April 1972, 10,652–62 (10,660 on reconciliation), h p://dipbt.bundestag.de/doc/btp/06/06182.pdf (last accessed 30 March 2020). Kiesinger speech, plenary session 06/183, 27 April 1972, 10,697–99, h p://dipbt.bundes tag.de/doc/btp/06/06183.pdf (last accessed 30 March 2020). Plenary session 06/183, 27 April 1972, 10,714, h p://dipbt.bundestag.de/doc/ btp/06/06183.pdf (last accessed 30 March 2020). Fis er, ‘Einleitung’, in Berliner Ausgabe 6: 64–65. Brandt, Begegnungen, 570. Award speech by A. Lionæs, Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, Oslo, 10 December 1971, h ps:// www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1971/ceremony-speech/ (last accessed 30 March 2020). ‘Man of the Year: Willy Brandt. On the Road to a New Reality’, Time Magazine, 4 January 1971. Merseburger, Willy Brandt, 657–60 (657 for the quote). G. Hofmann, Willy Brandt und Helmut S midt: Ges i te einer s wierigen Freunds a (Muni : Be , 2012), 16. M. Woyke (ed.), Partner und Rivalen: Der Briefwe sel (1958–1992) (Bonn: Dietz, 2015), 8, 31. Ehmke, Mi endrin, 221–23. ‘Was der Regierung fehlt, ist ein Kopf’, 8 October 1973, Der Spiegel, 27. ‘Aufstehen, regieren’, 14 March 1994, Der Spiegel, 61. Schaap, Political Reconciliation, 111 (quote). See also G. Li le, The Public Emotions: From Mourning to Hope (Sydney: ABC Books, 2001), 194–96. Brandt, Begegnungen, 570. S. Gross, ‘The German Economy and East-Central Europe’, German Politics and Society 31(3) (2013), 85–86. R. Newnham, ‘Economic Linkage and Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik: The Case of the Warsaw Treaty’, German Politics 16(2) (2007), 247–63. R. Newnham, ‘More Flies with Honey: Positive Economic Linkage in German Ostpolitik from Bismarck to Kohl’, International Studies Quarterly 44 (2000), 92–93. K. Rudolph, Wirts a sdiplomatie im Kalten Krieg: Die Ostpolitik der westdeuts en Großindustrie 1945–1991 (Frankfurt: Campus, 2004), 295–309. Brandt, Ordeal of Coexistence, 61, 77–78 (quote). Brandt speech, Tutzing, 15 July 1963, Berliner Ausgabe 3: 436. Meeting Brandt–Brezhnev, 18 May 1973, Berliner Ausgabe 6: 466–67.

Developing New Frameworks (1971–74) | 159

26. Niedhart, ‘Liberal Peace’, 151–57. 27. On Kant and the liberal peace debate, see M.W. Doyle, Liberal Peace: Selected Essays (London: Routledge, 2012). For a critical view on liberalist ideas and the Cold War, see J.L. Gaddis, ‘The Long Peace: Elements of Stability in the Postwar International System’, International Security 10(4) (1986), 110–14. On the European Communities and the EU, see F. Duchêne, Jean Monnet: The First Statesman of Interdependence (New York: Norton, 1994). Speeches by H. Van Rompuy and J.M. Barroso, 10 December 2010, Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, Oslo, h ps://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2012/eu/26124-europeanunion-eu-nobel-lecture-2012/ (last accessed 30 March 2020). 28. K.N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1979), 138. 29. For an overview of the debate, see O.P. Richmond and R. Mac Ginty, ‘Where Now for the Critique of the Liberal Peace?’, Cooperation and Conflict 50(2) (2015), 171–89. 30. M.E. Saro e, Dealing with the Devil: East Germany, Détente, and Ostpolitik, 1969–1973 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 84–86. 31. Bahr, Zu meiner Zeit, 373-74 (quote). Po hoff, Im Scha en, 101–2. 32. In May 1971, Moscow pressured seventy-seven-year-old Ulbricht to step down from the party leadership in order to make way for Honecker, perceived as more loyal to the Kremlin. The records of the Bahr–Kohl talks were published in DzD VI(2). 33. Basic Treaty, 21 December 1972, h ps://www.cvce.eu/content/publication/1999/1/1/3b9 b9f0d-6910-4ca9-8b12-accfcb91d28e/publishable_en.pdf (last accessed 30 March 2020) (Article 5 and Preamble for the quotes). 34. Between March and May 1973, Horst Grabert replaced Bahr as chief negotiator because of the la er’s illness and exhaustion. 35. Brandt statement on the Basic Treaty, 7 November 1972, h ps://www.willy-brandtbiografie.de/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Erklaerung_Grundlagenvertrag_1972.pdf (last accessed 30 March 2020) (quote). Brandt spee in Kassel, 9 November 1972, box 473, A3, WBA. 36. Le er Brandt to Brezhnev, 30 December 1973, Berliner Ausgabe 6: 522. Saro e, Devil, 155. W. Bruns, ‘Der Grundlagenvertrag ist 10 Jahre in Kra ’, Die Neue Gesells a 30(1) (1983), 66–70. 37. S aap, Political Reconciliation, 41–55. 38. Bender, Neue Ostpolitik, 249, 359–60. S midt, ‘Deuts landpolitik’, 221. On East German policy, see O. Bange, ‘Onto the Slippery Slope: East Germany and East-West Détente under Ulbricht and Honecker’, Journal of Cold War Studies 18(3) (2016), 60–94. 39. Meeting Brandt-Brezhnev, 18 May 1973, AAPD 1973(2): 715–17. Brezhnev speech at a meeting with West German economic leaders, 19 May 1973, Archiv der Gegenwart, 32,191–92. Brandt, People and Politics, 343. 40. K.H. S larp, ‘Die ökonomis e Untermauerung der Entspannungspolitik: Visionen und Realitäten einer deuts -sowjetis en Wirts a skooperation im Zei en der Neuen Ostpolitik‘, Ar iv für Sozialges i te 45 (2005), 91–92. 41. A. Stent, From Embargo to Ostpolitik: The Political Economy of West German–Soviet Relations 1955–1980 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 163–95. On economic considerations of the Eastern European states, see S. Kansikas, ‘Acknowledging Economic Realities: The CMEA Policy Change vis-à-vis the European Community, 1970–3’, European Review of History 21(2) (2014), 311–28. 42. Memo ‘Referat 421’, 25 April 1973, AAPD 1973(1): 715 (fn 15). Schlarp, ‘Untermauerung’, 88. Cf. Stent, From Embargo, 210-11, 244–45. Rudolph, Wirtscha sdiplomatie, 415–16. 43. In the statistics mentioned, the ‘West’ includes the twenty-four member states of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Bender, Neue Ostpolitik, 364–65. Gross, ‘German Economy’, 88–89.

160 | Reconciliation Road

44. Newnham, ‘Economic Linkage’, 259 (quote). Gross, ‘German Economy’, 86–88. Schlarp, ‘Untermauerung’, 92, 98. 45. K. Spohr, The Global Chancellor: Helmut Schmidt and the Reshaping of the International Order (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 89–90, 120, 127. U. Pfeil, ‘Aus Gegnern wurden Partner: Die Beziehungen zwischen der Bundesrepublik und der Sowjetunion 1969–1990’, Cahiers du MIMMOC no. 17 (2016), paragraphs 12–17, https://journals.open edition.org/mimmoc/2514 (last accessed 30 March 2020). 46. West German–Czechoslovak meeting, 20 June 1973, AAPD 1973(2): 1,015–17. Meeting Bahr with six Czechoslovak journalists, 29 May 1973, box 1/EBAA001039, Depositum Bahr, AdsD. Weber, ‘Normalisierung’, 65–69. 47. Treaty of Mutual Relations between the Federal Republic of Germany and the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (Treaty of Prague), 11 December 1973, https://www.cvce.eu/ content/publication/1999/1/1/0714c937-28b6-452a-86d2-ed164f64fcae/publishable_ en.pdf (last accessed 30 March 2020) (quotes from Articles I and II). L. Kettenacker, Germany 1989: In the Aftermath of the Cold War (Harlow: Pearson, 2009), 71. 48. Brandt speeches in Prague, 11–12 December 1973, Archiv der Gegenwart, 32,770–81. Excerpts in Brandt, People and Politics, 418–19. See also West German-Czechoslovak meetings, 11–12 December 1973, AAPD 1973(3): 2,015–17, 2,027–35. 49. Brandt speech from Prague, 11 December 1973, German television, Archiv der Gegenwart, 32,777–79. 50. Brandt, People and Politics, 416. Brandt, My Life, 204. 51. Bender, Neue Ostpolitik, 199. T. Janzer, ‘Prager Vertrag vor 35 Jahren: der letzte Baustein in Brandts Ostpolitik’, 13 December 2008, Radio Praha, https://www.radio.cz/de/rubrik/ geschichte/prager-vertrag-vor-35-jahren-der-letzte-baustein-in-brandts-ostpolitik (last accessed 30 March 2020) (Štrougal quote). F. Seibt, Deutschland und die Tschechen: Geschichte einer Nachbarschaft in der Mitte Europas (Munich: Piper, 1993), 401. 52. Feldman, Policy of Reconciliation, 268, 272. Seibt, Deutschland, 398. 53. Brandt statement, 20 June 1974, Pressemitteilungen der SPD 1958–1998, http://library .fes.de/cgi-bin/digibert.pl?id=008929&dok=18/008929 (last accessed 30 March 2020) (quote). Bonn meetings with representatives of Bulgaria, Hungary and Finland, 12–19 December 1973, AAPD 1973(3): 2,049–57, 2,064–66. Brandt, People and Politics, 420. C. Békés, ‘Hungary, the Soviet Bloc, the German Question, and the CSCE Process, 1965– 1975’, Journal of Cold War Studies 18(3) (2016), 95–138. J. Baev, ‘The Establishment of Bulgarian-West German Diplomatic Relations within the Coordinating Framework of the Warsaw Pact’, Journal of Cold War Studies 18(3) (2016), 158–80. 54. On this last point, see the secret Bahr memo to Brandt and Scheel, 7 July 1973, box 1/ EBAA001037, Depositum Bahr, AdsD. Cf. Brandt, People and Politics, 414–15. Tomala, Deutschland – von Polen, 323. 55. Jarząbek, ‘Deutsche (Neue) Ostpolitik’, 94–96. On the debates in the Sejm, see Tomala, Deutschland – von Polen, 323–30. 56. D. Bingen, ‘Die Deutschland- und Ostpolitik Willy Brandts im Spiegel der polnischen Publizistik 1966–1974’, in C. Tessmer (ed.), Das Willy-Brandt-Bild in Deutschland und Polen (Berlin: Bundeskanzler-Willy-Brandt-Stiftung, 2000), 100–3. Meeting Wischnewski– Piatkowski, 1 June 1973, box 1/EBAA001037, Depositum Bahr, AdsD. 57. Meetings Bahr–Szlachcic, 8 June and 5 October 1973, box 1/EBAA001037, Depositum Bahr, AdsD. D. Bingen, ‘Ökonomie der Werte in den westdeutsch-polnischen Beziehungen zwischen den 1950er und 1970er Jahren’, in D. Bingen, P.O. Loew and N. Wolf (eds), Interesse und Konflikt: Zur politischen Ökonomie der deutsch-polnischen Beziehungen, 1900–2007 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2008), 319–26. H. Schmidt, Die Deutschen und ihre Nachbarn: Menschen und Mächte II (Berlin: Siedler, 1990), 493–94.

Developing New Frameworks (1971–74) | 161

58. Feldman, Policy of Reconciliation, 201–64. A. Krzemiński, ‘Kniefall im Namen des Friedens’, in Andry owicz et al., Europa, 23–28. Bender, Neue Ostpolitik, 236–43. Jarząbek, ‘Deuts e (Neue) Ostpolitik’, 85–94. For a critical evaluation of the 1970s, see D. Bingen, ‘Der lange Weg der “Normalisierung”: Die Entwi lung der Beziehungen zwis en der Bundesrepublik Deuts land und Polen 1949–1990’, in W.D. Eberwein and B. Kerski (eds), Die deuts -polnis en Beziehungen 1949–2000: Eine Werte- oder Interessengemeins a ? (Opladen: Leske + Budrich, 2001), 47–51. 59. Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe Final Act, Helsinki 1975, h ps:// www.osce.org/helsinki-final-act?download=true (last accessed 30 March 2020). See especially D.C. Thomas, The Helsinki Effect: International Norms, Human Rights, and the Demise of Communism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001). A. Wenger, V. Mastny and C. Nuenlist (eds), Origins of the European Security System: The Helsinki Process Revisited, 1965–75 (Oxon: Routledge, 2008). O. Bange and G. Niedhart (eds), Helsinki 1975 and the Transformation of Europe (New York: Berghahn Books, 2008). M.C. Morgan, The Final Act: The Helsinki Accords and the Transformation of the Cold War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018). For a dissenting viewpoint, see M. Kramer, ‘The Demise of the Soviet Bloc’, The Journal of Modern History 83(4) (2011), 788–854. 60. Author’s interview with Osmo Apunen, on 10 January 2017 in Kämmenniemi. Apunen participated in the Helsinki process as a representative of the Finnish Foreign Ministry and notably monitored the dra ing of Basket I. 61. Brandt speech, NATO Ministerial Council, Washington, 10 April 1969, in Brandt, Wille zum Frieden, 208. Public Appeal for a European Security Conference by the Warsaw Pact countries, 17 March 1969, h p://www.php.isn.ethz.ch/kms2.isn.ethz.ch/serviceengine/ Files/PHP/18022/ipublicationdocument_singledocument/af28a41f-2c8f-4238-b134241fc20a0cf2/en/Public_Appeal_1969_9.pdf (last accessed 30 March 2020). B. Kreisky, Zwis en den Zeiten: Erinnerungen aus fünf Jahrzehnten (Berlin: Siedler, 1986), 384–85. Brandt, Begegnungen, 207–8. 62. M.C. Morgan and D. Sargent, ‘Helsinki, 1975’, in Spohr and Reynolds, Transcending the Cold War, 97–106. T. Fischer, ‘“A Mustard Seed Grew into a Bushy Tree”: The Finnish CSCE Initiative of 5 May 1969’, Cold War History 9(2) (2009), 183–87. N. Badalassi, ‘“Neither Too Much nor Too Li le”: France, the USSR and the Helsinki CSCE’, Cold War History 18(1) (2018), 1–5. 63. Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe Final Act, Helsinki 1975, h ps:// www.osce.org/helsinki-final-act?download=true (last accessed 30 March 2020). 64. Author’s interview with Osmo Apunen, 10 January 2017. 65. P. Hakkarainen, A State of Peace in Europe: West Germany and the CSCE, 1966-1975 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2011), 161–76 (Hakkarainen quote on 171, Braithwaite quote on 173). Telegram van Well (Bonn) to Pauls, 10 September 1971, AAPD 1971(2): 1,359–63. 66. Meeting Frank–Willman, 25 October 1971, AAPD 1971(3): 1,601 (quote). Telegram Frank to NATO office (Brussels), 29 April 1971, AAPD 1971(1): 690–92. 67. Handwri en memo by Brandt, ‘Betr. Krim Sept. 71’, undated, box 436, Depositum Bahr, AdsD. Meeting Brandt–Brezhnev, 17 September 1971, Berliner Ausgabe 6: 384–87. 68. Meeting Bahr–Macovescu, 16 November 1970, AAPD 1970(3): 2,066. Meeting Bahr– Hillenbrand, 16 June 1971, AAPD 1971(2): 978–80. 69. Bahr memorandum, ‘Europäis e Si erheit’, 27 June 1968, AAPD 1968(1): 796–814. 70. Meeting Brandt–Brezhnev, Bonn, 18 May 1973, Berliner Ausgabe 6: 469 (quote). Meeting Brandt-Brezhnev, Oreanda, 17 September 1971, Berliner Ausgabe 6: 386. 71. Zubok, Failed Empire, 202–3, 225. 72. Loth, Overcoming the Cold War, 110-19. Morgan and Sargent, ‘Helsinki, 1975’, 100. Meeting Brandt–Nixon, Washington, 1 May 1973, AAPD 1973(2): 617; cf. the US version in

162 | Reconciliation Road

73. 74.

75. 76. 77.

78.

79.

80.

81.

82.

83. 84. 85.

86.

FRUS 1973–76, vol. E-15(2), 826, h ps://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus196976ve15p2/d265 (last accessed 30 March 2020). Vogtmeier, Egon Bahr, 169–80. W.F. Hahn, ‘West Germany’s Ostpolitik: The Grand Design of Egon Bahr’, Orbis: A Journal of World Affairs 16(4) (1973), 859–80. Hahn was a US academic specialized in the analysis of US foreign policy. In 1973, he was doing research at the CDU-sponsored Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation near Bonn. Author’s interview with Egon Bahr, on 5 May 2009 in Berlin. Box 406, Depositum Bahr, AdsD. The entire box contains documents, newspaper articles and official statements on the 1973 ‘Hahn affair’. Meeting Brandt–Pompidou, 21 June 1973, AAPD 1973(2): 1,019 (first quote). Memo Simon, 14 August 1973, ibid., 1,243 (second quote). Pompidou cited by French journalists: ‘L’Allemagne n’a qu’un but: la réunification, c’est-à-dire sa sortie de l’OTAN et de la Communauté Européenne.’ Telegram Sauvagnargues (Bonn), ‘Bilan et perspectives fin 1973’, 15 November 1973, box 3,006, RFA, Europe 1971–76, AMAE (quote). Memo, ‘RFA et CSCE’, 14 November 1973, ibid. On French policy towards Brandt’s Ostpolitik, see N. Badalassi, En finir avec la guerre froide: La France, l’Europe et le processus d’Helsinki, 1965–1975 (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2014), 121–88. Brief for Prime Minister’s talk with Egon Bahr, 26 October 1973, Western European Department (FCO), PREM 15/1572, Prime Minister’s office files, The National Archives, Kew. Henderson (Bonn) to Douglas-Home, 5 October 1973, PREM 15/1572, ibid. Meeting Heath–Bahr, 29 October 1973, PREM 15/1572, The National Archives, Kew. R. Edmonds, Diplomatic report no. 426/70, 2 September 1970, FCO 33/1028, ibid. Brandt, My Life, 174–75. See also D. Geppert, ‘Großbritannien und die Neue Ostpolitik der Bundesrepublik’, Vierteljahrshe e für Zeitges i te 57(3) (2009), 385–412. Meeting Kissinger–Luns, 13 April 1973, box 1,027, HAK Memcons, National security council files, Nixon Library, Yorba Linda (quotes). Meeting Kissinger–Strauss, 18 October 1973, box 688, Europe, NSC, Nixon Library, Yorba Linda. Telegram Hillenbrand (Bonn), ‘Orbis article on Bahr Plan’, 17 April 1973, box 2,301, Subject numeric files 1970– 73, RG 59, National Archives, College Park. Report by the State Department, ‘A Longer Term Perspective on Key Issues of European Security’, Washington 1970, Declassified Documents Reference System, accessed from the Norwegian Nobel Institute on 12 June 2007, esp. 1–14, 40–48. For more detail, see J.F. Juneau, ‘The Limits of Linkage: The Nixon Administration and Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik, 1969-72’, The International History Review 33(2) (2011), 277–97. Kissinger, White House Years, 401–2, 410–11 (quotes) 534, 947–48. Telegram Lahn (Bonn) to NATO office (Brussels), MBFR, 29 June 1970, box 1,970, B150, PA/AA. Henderson (Bonn) to Douglas-Home, 5 October 1973, PREM 15/1572, Prime Minister’s office files, The National Archives, Kew. Covering the wide range of interpretations: G. Niedhart, ‘Ostpolitik: Phases, Short-Term Objectives and Grand Design’, GHI Supplement 1 (2003), 118–36. S wartz, ‘Legacies of Détente’, 517. Wilkens, ‘New Ostpolitik’, 71. Fis er, ‘Einleitung’, in Berliner Ausgabe 6: 85. G. Bernardini, Nuova Germania, antichi timori: Stati Uniti, Ostpolitik e sicurezza europea (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2014). Senoo, Irrweg. C. Bluth, ‘The Origins of MBFR: West German Policy Priorities and Conventional Arms Control’, War in History 7(2) (2000), 199–224. W. Loth, ‘The Road to Vienna: West German and European Security from 1969 to 1973’, in W. Loth and G.H. Soutou (eds), The Making of Détente: Eastern and Western Europe in the Cold War, 1965–1975 (London: Routledge, 2008), 153–67. Brandt, Erinnerungen, 73 (quote).

Developing New Frameworks (1971–74) | 163

87. Author’s interview with Peter Brandt, on 3 December 2011 in Hagen (quotes). On the Bahr–Brandt relationship, see also Vogtmeier, Egon Bahr, 20–61. 88. Memo Ehmke, 30 January 1970, box 217, Depositum Horst Ehmke, AdsD. Brandt toast, Washington, 10 April 1970, box 1/HSAA010070, Depositum Helmut S midt, AdsD. Brandt interview with Der Spiegel, 27 September 1971, Berliner Ausgabe 6: 404–5 (see also his statements on pages 236, 248–57, 416 and 452). 89. Meeting Brandt–Brezhnev, 20 May 1973, AAPD 1973(2): 763 (quote). Meeting Brandt– Macovescu, 22 February 1972, AAPD 1972(1): 179–84. 90. NATO Council of Ministers, 7–8 December 1972, AAPD 1972(3): 1,792 (Schumann quote). 91. Meeting Brandt–Pompidou, 6 July 1971, AAPD 1971(2): 1,078. Memo Ehmke, 23 December 1970, box 439, Depositum Bahr, AdsD. 92. E.g. Meeting Bahr–Kissinger, 17 August 1970, AAPD 1970(2): 1,490. Meeting Brandt– Pompidou, 10 February 1972, AAPD 1972(1): 123. Message Bahr to Kissinger, 1 April 1972, AAPD 1972(1): 351. Meeting Brandt–Heath, 29 May 1973, AAPD 1973(2): 863. 93. Meeting Brandt–Rovan, 22 August 1973, Berliner Ausgabe 6: 495 (long quote). Brandt interview with L’Express, 7 December 1970, Berliner Ausgabe 6: 342 (short quote).

Chapter 6

MAINTAINING CONTACTS WITH THE EAST (1974–92)

( If indeed we are Homo loquens – man made human by the capacity for speech – we must not give up the effort of dialogue regardless of the magnitude of the crisis. —Daisaku Ikeda, 20031

A er Willy Brandt stepped down as West German chancellor on 7 May 1974, he only partially relinquished politics and retained his position as SPD party leader for another thirteen years, until June 1987. He remained internationally active as chairman of the North–South Commission (1977– 83), which reported to the United Nations, as a member of the European Parliament (1977–83) and as president of the Socialist International from 1976 until 1992, the year of his death. During these years as an elder statesman, Brandt was no longer acting as a decision-maker in East–West politics and reconciliation with Eastern Europe did not necessarily figure at the top of his agenda. Nevertheless, against the background of rapidly changing Cold War relations, he continued to contribute behind the scenes to East–West exchange. From the late 1970s until the mid-1980s, the focus of his contributions was on securing the networks formed and defending the legacy of Ostpolitik. In a sense, the intensified Cold War antagonism of the early 1980s turned the clocks back to the objective of peaceful coexistence of the 1950s, with the important difference that a network of contacts between Eastern and Western Europe now existed at the top, middle-range and even grassroots levels. Brandt’s efforts to keep these networks alive were based on the concepts and practices of Ostpolitik developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s; hence they were no longer innovative in nature. Upon the advent of Mikhail Gorbachev as the new Soviet leader in March Notes for this chapter begin on page 190.

Maintaining Contacts with the East (1974–92) | 165

1985, the initiative for transforming East–West antagonism was once again expressed at the level of high politics, whilst those at the grassroots level came to play a decisive role in ending the Cold War, especially in 1989. Brandt met with Gorbachev three times in Moscow during the second half of the 1980s and tried to influence the course of events towards disarmament and a peaceful growing together of East and West. In his last years, shaped by the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 and German reunification in October 1990, Brandt a empted to envisage a framework that would enable pan-European co-operation.

Back to Coexistence Reconciliation processes do not necessarily develop in linear ways from a ‘thin’ type of simple coexistence towards a ‘thick’ type of reconciliation involving mutual healing and comprehensive reconstruction of social bonds. In the terms proposed by Ramsbotham, Woodhouse and Miall, the end of violence and political closure (first stage) may develop into efforts to overcome polarization and rehumanize the other (second stage) and into the transformation of political and economic structures (third stage), but then revert to the second or first stages or even to the recurrence of violence.2 Such a reversal took place regarding the historical events examined here, in the late 1970s and early 1980s. West Germany did not abandon the tenets of Ostpolitik during the chancellorships of Helmut Schmidt and Helmut Kohl, yet the global deterioration of Cold War relations made Brandt’s initial goal of comprehensive reconciliation between Eastern and Western Europe appear premature, obsolete or even misguided. The exposure of his speaker, Günter Guillaume, as an East German spy led to Brandt’s resignation as chancellor in May 1974 but did not seriously diminish his considerable national and international prestige. An opinion poll showed that only a minority of Germans viewed Brandt’s resignation as a result of weak leadership while the majority expressed respect for his taking responsibility for a mistake.3 Even if the resignation relieved him of a ‘burden’, as he wrote in a personal le er to West German President Gustav Heinemann, Brandt could not cope easily with the loss of the chancellorship and for the rest of his life ruminated on the reasons. The fact that he was brought down by a spy sent by the GDR, which had gained international recognition thanks to Ostpolitik, proved particularly hard to accept. But Brandt’s political opinion was still much sought a er, and over the following years he travelled the world, met decision-makers and delivered innumerable speeches. The almost incessant air travel soon took its toll on his health. A er a severe heart a ack in late 1978 he spent

166 | Reconciliation Road

three months of convalescence in the South of France, only to leave for another trip in April 1979. Around the same time Willy and Rut Brandt decided to separate and soon moved in with new partners, Rut with the Danish journalist Niels Nørlundt and Willy with Brigi e Seebacher, his speechwriter and travelling companion since 1977.4 Meanwhile, the United States and its Western European allies developed differing views on the usefulness of East–West détente. Helmut Schmidt’s version of Ostpolitik was similar to but more pragmatic than Brandt’s and during the late 1970s found wide support in Western Europe. Chancellor Schmidt commi ed himself to seamlessly continuing Brandt’s Ostpolitik and to expanding its practical results, based on the conviction that continuous contacts with the East were in West Germany’s own best interests. He notably endeavoured to establish permanent co-operation between the FRG’s social market economy and the GDR’s planned economy. At the same time, Schmidt established ‘some distance from Willy Brandt’s idealism’, was less emotionally involved in Ostpolitik than his predecessor and soon a er taking office became sceptical of Soviet motives. Schmidt perceived Ostpolitik as an integral part of West German defence policy and viewed East–West disarmament plans critically, fearing that the FRG would become exposed to Soviet pressure. Hence, he unequivocally rejected any vague and incalculable ideas – as previously expressed by Brandt and Bahr – of a European peace order or even an abolition of military alliances. Overall, Schmidt and his closest European partner, French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, were in total agreement that dialogue across the Iron Curtain had made war in Europe less likely and that a revival of East–West tensions would only serve to tighten the Soviet grip on Eastern Europe.5 By contrast, during the short-lived US presidency of Gerald Ford (1974–77) Washington started to perceive détente as a sell-out of US power and in February 1976 announced a policy of ‘peace through strength’ in relations with the Soviet Union and China. In January 1977, newly elected president Jimmy Carter pledged to fight for human rights and to aspire to the high moral ideal of ‘a lasting peace, built not on weapons of war but on international policies which reflect our own most precious values’.6 However, East–West relations developed differently from Carter’s expectations. A er communist forces overran South Vietnam in 1975, the Soviet military involvement in Angola (1975–76) and Ethiopia (1977–78) signalled communist advances also in Africa. At a Soviet Party congress in February 1976, Brezhnev emphasized that ‘détente does not and cannot in the slightest abolish or change the laws of the class struggle’ and announced further Soviet efforts to promote communism worldwide.7 Along the Iron Curtain in Europe, the Soviet Union replaced the dated medium-range missiles with modern SS-20 missiles, starting in 1977.

Maintaining Contacts with the East (1974–92) | 167

While Moscow characterized this renewal as a normal process of modernization, in the West the measure gave rise to fears of an Eastern surprise a ack. Furthermore, the Islamic Revolution in Iran (1978–79) led to the collapse of the balance of power in the region and accelerated the descent of Afghanistan into civil war. When Soviet ground and air forces invaded Afghanistan on Christmas day 1979, Carter felt betrayed by Brezhnev and interpreted the Soviet move, in gross exaggeration, as the ‘greatest threat to peace since the Second World War’. In fact, Carter’s government perceived the invasion of Afghanistan as the opening move of a Soviet thrust towards Pakistan, Iran and the Indian Ocean. The direct result of these events was that the US declared a ‘Second Cold War’.8 With the benefit of hindsight, it appears that the Soviet Union did not actually pursue any further expansionist plans and rather reacted to the mounting unrest in Afghanistan, coupled with the fear that the United States might be preparing to occupy Afghan territories. Until late 1979 Brezhnev apparently opposed Soviet invasion plans in order not to damage his relations with the West, but he was in dire physical condition and no longer able to exercise real leadership while bureaucratic and ideological factors gradually gained ascendancy in Soviet foreign policy.9 In 1980, both Giscard and Schmidt met with Brezhnev to keep the established communication channels alive. The Western European leaders in general found it difficult to understand why Moscow’s entry into Afghanistan should be so different from the earlier invasions of Hungary (1956) or Czechoslovakia (1968) when NATO had decided not to react to military aggression within the Soviet sphere of influence. Even Margaret Thatcher, prime minister of the United Kingdom since May 1979 and a tireless promoter of transatlantic ties, feared that a purely confrontational US policy towards the USSR might kindle anti-Western sentiment elsewhere in the world, notably in India.10 Yet the relationship between Washington and Moscow deteriorated further over the following years and reached its nadir in 1983. Carter’s government openly challenged Soviet policies and put in place economic embargoes to undermine the Eastern economies. The build-up of Western defence and rhetorical warfare reached new heights under US President Ronald Reagan. Soon a er taking office in January 1981, Reagan dismissed communism ‘as some bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages are even now being wri en’ and in March 1983 famously called the Soviet Union an ‘evil empire’.11 Washington intensified its efforts to undermine Soviet influence in Asia, Africa and Latin America, conducted a veritable campaign of economic warfare against the Eastern camp and, somewhat unsuccessfully, a empted to impede trade between Eastern and Western Europe. In fact, the European allies considered East–West trade a valuable contribution to political stability and

168 | Reconciliation Road

rejected Washington’s policy as counterproductive. In March 1983 Reagan announced the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), which aimed at developing a futuristic laser shield in space that would protect the United States from ballistic missiles and nuclear a acks.12 In Moscow, the announcement of the SDI gave rise to fears that Reagan might be actively preparing for war and even contemplating a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the Soviet Union. Yuri Andropov, who had taken the Soviet lead upon Brezhnev’s death in November 1982, perceived Reagan as unpredictable and capable of anything. Accordingly, Andropov steered a tough course to confront the US and, for example, dispatched Soviet submarines armed with nuclear missiles to police the US coastline. During the last months of 1983, a series of aggressive gestures, false alarms and misunderstandings exacerbated East–West tensions to the point that accidental nuclear warfare indeed became a possibility.13 Beyond the short-term effects of Washington’s confrontational policy, which clearly had dangerous implications, academic analyses have reached divergent conclusions with regard to its medium-term consequences. One line of argument establishes a causal relationship between Reagan’s confrontational stance and the end of the Cold War in the sense that Moscow could not keep up with Washington when faced with the prospect of an unaffordable new arms race. Consequently, the Soviet Union had no option but to cut defence expenditures and introduce major internal changes, which eventually led to the collapse of the Soviet empire and of the USSR itself. This argumentation essentially follows the reasoning adopted by President Reagan, who wanted to force Moscow into disarmament negotiations on US terms and predicted, in October 1981, that the Soviets ‘cannot vastly increase their military productivity because they’ve already got their people on a starvation diet’.14 The evidence confirms that on coming to power Mikhail Gorbachev considered the reduction of the Soviet defence budget an absolute necessity to improve the domestic situation and reform the economy.15 However, whether or not Reagan’s aggressive policy caused the Soviet reorientation is another question. Several scholars, notably Archie Brown, rejected such causality and pointed out instead that the reforms initiated by Gorbachev, which concerned the political realm much more than the economic, were specifically related to Gorbachev’s persona and his ‘new thinking’ on how to cope with the long-protracted decline of the Eastern camp. Unaffected by Reagan’s military build-up, the Soviet Union had more than enough nuclear weapons to terminate all life in the United States and actually on the whole planet. Moreover, the Soviet elite and the military-industrial complex had nothing to gain from fundamental reforms threatening their privileges and, importantly, upon taking office in March 1985 Gorbachev was very much

Maintaining Contacts with the East (1974–92) | 169

alone in promoting a new course. These arguments raise serious doubts about the assumption that Reagan’s policy le the Soviet leaders with no option but to reorganize their empire and domestic structures.16 In light of the marked contrast between US policy in the early 1980s and the tenets of Brandt’s Ostpolitik, this point is particularly relevant here. In the East–West context of the late 1970s and early 1980s, Brandt’s objectives were less ambitious than they had been during his chancellorship. Now his primary concern was to contribute to the preservation of détente and the prevention of a major war (corresponding merely to the thinnest stage of reconciliation). These intentions notably pervaded his frequent exchange of le ers with Leonid Brezhnev and their occasional meetings in Moscow and in Bonn. Brandt also sent similar messages to the Polish, Czechoslovak, Hungarian, Romanian and Yugoslavian leaders, but their exchanges were less frequent.17 In a le er sent to Brezhnev on 7 January 1976, Brandt voiced concern over the sha ering of important pillars of détente such as disarmament talks and in an amicable tone requested the Soviet leader to ‘monitor possible negligence in areas under your direct responsibility’.18 By May 1977, Brandt feared that ‘the rational logic of détente policy might sink into oblivion’ and, as in the late 1950s and early 1960s, stressed the virtues of ‘peaceful coexistence’ between the ideologically irreconcilable Eastern and Western camps. He expressed the conviction that in the nuclear age there was no alternative, and that nothing was more important than securing peace through détente and co-operation.19 The primary focus on maintaining peace and avoiding war, which is a distinctive feature of the concept of coexistence, became even more apparent in Brandt’s le ers to Brezhnev a er the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Brandt now wrote that a return to the Cold War would lead the world to the brink of catastrophe, proposed measures for military de-escalation and actually transmi ed a message by US President Carter in the hope of reviving negotiations between Moscow and Washington. However, the evidence suggests that Brandt’s influence on Brezhnev’s stance was minimal and their direct contact almost irrelevant for global developments, even during the serious East–West crisis following the invasion of Afghanistan.20 In their exchanges, the Soviet leader tended to ignore Brandt’s calls for disarmament, to complain about Helmut Schmidt’s alleged lack of commitment to détente and to accuse NATO of undermining world peace. A er November 1982, Brandt never managed to meet with Brezhnev’s decrepit and bedridden successors, the transitional Soviet leaders Yuri Andropov (1982–84) and Konstantin Chernenko (1984–85). Arguably, during this period of increased East–West tension Brandt’s main merit was to make constant efforts to sustain dialogue with Soviet and Eastern Euro-

170 | Reconciliation Road

pean leaders and to credibly personify the virtues of East–West exchange even beyond his chancellorship. Domestically, with the social-liberal coalition governing until October 1982, Brandt was hardly involved at all in West German foreign policy. As SPD chairman he publicly supported the ‘double-track decision’ of combining Western military strength with East–West negotiations on disarmament adopted by NATO in mid-December 1979 on Schmidt’s recommendation. Yet Brandt also entertained sympathies for the massive peace movements emerging in Western Europe and their protests against nuclear weaponry – especially against the deployment of the latest US Pershing II missiles as part of the double-track decision. In September 1981 he reminded Schmidt that ‘we should not isolate ourselves from what worries many and especially young people in our country’.21 A er Schmidt lost the chancellorship to Helmut Kohl (CDU) in October 1982, Brandt was relieved of his obligations towards his party colleague and was able to express himself more freely. In October 1983 he took the platform in front of half a million cheering demonstrators in Bonn and declared that ‘we do not need more but fewer weapons of mass destruction in Germany’.22 Unlike Schmidt, Brandt perceived disarmament as a decisive element in alleviating political tensions and securing peace. Brandt also resumed his pronouncements on relations with the East and in November 1982 announced the relaunch of Ostpolitik and of the reconciliation process initiated with Eastern Europe. Over the following years and under Brandt’s leadership, the SPD thus pursued a shadow foreign policy which competed with that of Kohl’s government.23 Other than in domestic politics, where Brandt a ached importance to protest movements at the grassroots level, in Eastern policy Brandt dealt almost exclusively with government officials and expressed hardly any support for the emerging protest and human rights groups. While this policy was consonant with Brandt’s original Ostpolitik and his initial approach to reconciliation, paradoxically it created tensions with a turn of events partly set in motion by Ostpolitik.

Ripple Effects of Ostpolitik Beyond the general reconfiguration of East–West European politics, the launch of Ostpolitik in the early 1970s had also yielded practical results. By the early 1980s, trade across the Iron Curtain and Eastern economic dependence on the West had reached a point that exerted direct influence on Soviet politics. Faced with the question of whether or not to invade Poland in 1980–81 to save the to ering communist regime, the expected economic sanctions from the West were an important reason for Moscow

Maintaining Contacts with the East (1974–92) | 171

to reject the former option. The decision-makers in the Kremlin concluded that they simply could not afford the economic repercussions if Poland – and the other Eastern European states – lost their trade relations with the West and sought Soviet support instead. West Germany had become Poland’s main creditor and played a particularly significant role with regard to Eastern economic dependence.24 During the 1980s West Germany’s economic ties with Eastern Europe did not grow as in the previous decade and trade with the Soviet Union actually decreased (relative to West German exports and imports overall). The different economic systems and lack of real reforms in the East prevented any major advance in economic co-operation. Nevertheless, trade and technological exchange with the West remained indispensable to the a empted modernization of the Eastern economies. Their dependence on Western Europe became even more apparent as, by the late 1980s, the increasingly fragile Eastern system approached its collapse. West Germany shrewdly developed its economic diplomacy in this context. For example, by 1989 one third of all Hungarian joint ventures had been concluded with West German business partners, a presage of the two countries’ close economic co-operation in the decades to come. As is well known, West German payments, credits and economic aid to the Soviet Union, starting in early 1990, were instrumental in obtaining Moscow’s acquiescence to German reunification.25 Individual travel across the Iron Curtain was another practical element to which Brandt’s Ostpolitik had contributed significantly in the 1970s. While travel options from East to West remained limited, the implementation of the Eastern Treaties had allowed millions of West Germans to visit Eastern Europe. A er painstaking negotiations, and in exchange for substantial West German payments, the Eastern governments also agreed to allow the relocation of fixed numbers of ethnic Germans to the FRG. For example, in 1978 Bonn paid Bucharest DM 5,000 per exit visa for ethnic Germans in Romania and acquiesced in the multiplication of the ‘buy out’ fee during the 1980s. East–West travel and migration increased markedly in the wake of Gorbachev’s reform programmes and the liberalization of the Soviet emigration laws in 1986.26 Gorbachev also promoted new opportunities for individual travel to Western countries and gradually introduced freedom of communication, which meant, among other things, that foreign broadcasts were no longer jammed by the Soviet authorities. The best documented case of individual travel across the Iron Curtain relates to the special ties between West and East Germany. Beyond the bilateral Traffic Treaty of 1972, the Helsinki Final Act and the CSCE follow-up conferences provided the West Germans with instruments to pressure the GDR into allowing more frequent travel across the inner-German border, in both directions. Eventually, and as a result also of generous

172 | Reconciliation Road

credits granted by Kohl’s government, Honecker exponentially increased the number of approved visits to West Germany from 66,000 in 1985 to 242,000 in 1986 and to 1,200,000 in 1987 (not counting the pensioners who could travel unrestrictedly). Already in 1984 Honecker had allowed some 40,000 East Germans to move permanently to the West. At the same time, the East German regime observed Gorbachev’s reform programmes with barely disguised foreboding and had not the remotest intention of dismantling the border fortifications separating the two German states. Quite the opposite; in January 1989 Honecker provocatively declared that the Berlin Wall might well stand for another fi y or a hundred years.27 Most scholars perceive the Helsinki process as an influential element in the later stages of the Cold War, leading to its demise. As has been demonstrated, Chancellor Brandt’s Ostpolitik accomplished some crucial groundwork without which the Helsinki conference and the Final Act of 1975 might not have been possible. The unforeseen process that developed during the following fi een years further contributed to the relevance of the ‘Helsinki effect’ for establishing pan-European contacts and preparing the groundwork for East–West reconciliation.28 All social levels specified in Lederach’s pyramid came to play their part in the process. The top political leaders of the Warsaw Pact (and especially Leonid Brezhnev) originally launched the project of a pan-European conference and their opposite numbers cleared the way on the Western European side. The holding of the conference and the reunion of thirty-five heads of state and government in Helsinki was in itself a novelty and created a shared political space where Eastern and Western decision-makers came together. At the same time, the political objective of the conference was fundamentally conservative and not intended to modify the Cold War structures, let alone to achieve East–West reconciliation. The goal was merely recognition of the European status quo and to organize a modus vivendi between the Eastern and Western camps. Beyond the conservative plans of high politics, during the preparatory negotiations for the Final Act in Geneva (1973–75) a network of junior officials and delegates emerged from all participating countries and interacted on a daily basis. This network of middle-range leaders from East and West created opportunities for informal talk behind the scenes and for multilateral understanding.29 To some extent the network behind the scenes lived on through the Helsinki follow-up meetings in Belgrade (1977–78), Madrid (1980–83) and Vienna (1986–89). Moreover, soon a er the end of the Helsinki conference in August 1975, the process spilled over to the grassroots level with the creation of different kinds of Helsinki groups debating the principles of the Final Act. The newly created framework of the CSCE also provided existing associations with easier contacts to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, notably

Maintaining Contacts with the East (1974–92) | 173

ecumenical church organizations involved in building bridges between people in East and West. Another example is the spread of activities by Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) beyond the Iron Curtain. Amnesty International had previously focused on working through the United Nations in New York, but in September 1975 decided to use the Helsinki Final Act for its own purposes to establish contact with prisoners and politically persecuted persons in Eastern Europe. Already at the Helsinki follow-up conference in Madrid, activists working for various NGOs were granted access to the venue and governmental delegations, thereby adding a grassroots layer to the official CSCE meetings.30 With the benefit of hindsight, the farthest-reaching effect of the Helsinki conference was the creation of Helsinki groups in Eastern Europe, most importantly the Moscow Helsinki Group in 1976, Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia and a variety of Polish civil rights groups. As Czechoslovak and Polish government officials publicly stated that the provisions of the Final Act were binding, veteran dissidents and previously disaffected individuals came together to form monitoring groups and hold the communist governments accountable for their promises and international obligations. Of particular significance for the development of a transnational network was the Moscow Helsinki Group, which suffered repression by the Soviet authorities and nevertheless inspired other people throughout the Eastern camp to insist on their rights. Through the interaction of Eastern human rights activists with NGOs and supportive Western governments, an increasingly influential East–West network used the Helsinki follow-up conferences to exert considerable pressure on the Eastern governments and to demand respect for the human rights inscribed in the Final Act.31 These activist movements at the grassroots level undeniably played a decisive role in undermining the legitimacy of the communist regimes during the final stages of the Cold War. In Czechoslovakia and Poland, and to a lesser degree in Hungary, the activist groups created in the wake of the Helsinki conference came to play pivotal roles in the transformation of their countries in 1989–90. Moreover, Daniel Thomas and Sarah Snyder have developed detailed arguments showing the influence of the Helsinki process on Mikhail Gorbachev’s policy choices. According to this line of thought, Gorbachev’s decision to progressively dismantle the coercive machinery of the Soviet state and to grant unprecedented freedoms to the Eastern European countries was closely related to his embrace of the Helsinki principles. In other words, both international pressure and the progress of the domestic discourse on human rights affected Gorbachev’s conclusion that the Soviet Union, if it were to assume a new role of moral and political leadership in the world, first had to divest itself of its previous practice of political repression.32

174 | Reconciliation Road

When reappraising the Helsinki process during the last months of his life, Willy Brandt referred to the ‘miracle named Helsinki’ and the long-term changes achieved through the Eastern dissidents’ small but continuous steps. He also highlighted the merit of his own government in enabling the Helsinki conference to actually take place despite numerous ‘misunderstandings and concerns’.33 Likewise, in the days and weeks following the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989, Brandt publicly emphasized that his Ostpolitik had ‘provided the key for the panEuropean policy of Helsinki’ by negotiating and signing treaties ‘with the partners available at the time’.34 History confirms that he had every right to make this claim. Nevertheless, Brandt’s earlier statements leave li le doubt that until the mid-1980s he perceived the process initiated by the Helsinki conference as disappointing. Starting in January 1976, and many times during the following ten years, Brandt claimed in criticism that the verbose compromises included in the Helsinki Final Act had provoked an ‘illusionary evaluation and interpretation’ of the conference results. He bemoaned the widespread illusions that, since summer 1975, ‘some district court in Helsinki was pontificating on European human rights issues’, or that the vague formulas of the Final Act could serve to ‘explain away communism’.35 From Brandt’s perspective, the Final Act had changed nothing about the fact that communism remained fundamentally ‘undemocratic’.36 Furthermore, in the early 1980s he deeply regre ed that the Helsinki conference had not laid the foundations for a process of disarmament, which he considered indispensable for East–West détente. On the tenth anniversary of the Helsinki conference, in July 1985, Brandt blamed the two superpowers for destabilizing Europe and ‘undermining the CSCE Final Act’ through their arms race. He deemed the uncoupling of CSCE and MBFR a fundamental mistake of the 1970s, likewise the separation of the Helsinki negotiations into three baskets. In Brandt’s view, instead of playing off the different parts of the Final Act against each other, all actors now needed to learn that ‘the three baskets belong together’.37 Notwithstanding ‘all the disappointments’ he also made constant reference to the ‘general significance’ of the Helsinki process and, by December 1986, interpreted the very existence of Eastern activists as a vindication of the policy he had initiated – even though his reasoning in this context remained somewhat unclear. Judging from Brandt’s notes for an unfinished book manuscript, until the end of his life he pondered the question whether he should have given the Eastern dissidents more support.38 Retrospectively, it does indeed appear that he dealt with Eastern grassroots movements too cautiously and that, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, he focused excessively on avoiding war.

Maintaining Contacts with the East (1974–92) | 175

Brandt’s failure to support the protest movements in the East was most perplexing in relation to Poland, the very country with which he most fervently wished to promote reconciliation. It is thus worth taking a closer look at Brandt’s approach and argumentation in this context. He was particularly vocal in defending the incipient reconciliation process with Poland when the Schmidt-Gierek agreement of August 1975 on compensation payments and visa permits came under domestic a ack. Helmut Kohl and Franz Josef Strauß, respectively the leaders of the CDU and CSU, publicly dismissed the agreement as a result of poor negotiations and ‘pseudo-humanity’ and spoke out against its ratification by the Bundestag.39 In his rejoinder to their criticism in November 1975, Brandt insisted on the tremendous significance for the Germans of seizing the opportunity offered for reconciliation with the Polish people and to ensure the ‘credibility’ of the German-initiated ‘policy of reconciliation’ with the whole of Eastern Europe.40 He characterized the Treaty of Warsaw as merely ‘the start of a process of reconciliation, which would continue to demand a lot of strength and insight from both sides’. In the same context Brandt also explained his understanding of German–Polish reconciliation: it entailed a ‘moral and spiritual dimension’, the practical dimension of bringing together Polish and German people and the high-politics dimension of developing common features in the foreign policies of Bonn and Warsaw. To further reconciliation with Poland, Brandt encouraged his fellow Germans to confront the ‘shadows of a disastrous past’ with patience and tenacity, to appreciate the positive elements of the ‘common historical heritage’ and to make ‘contributions towards a common European future’. He thereby reaffirmed that reconciliation necessarily included the transformation of past burdens and the creation of a new, shared future.41 In late November 1980, commemorating the tenth anniversary of the Treaty of Warsaw in a speech from Bonn, Brandt once again projected a common future and declared that ‘we Germans, we wish to have the Poles as our privileged partners in and for Europe’. His review of the German–Polish reconciliation process involved all three levels previously mentioned. Regarding the grassroots level, Brandt pointed out the significantly increased number of personal contacts, the ‘heartfelt sympathy’ of the vast majority of Germans for the Polish people and the achievement that formerly German territories were now widely accepted as integral parts of Poland. He described scientific and cultural exchange and trade as the main pillars of institutionalized co-operation. In terms of high politics, Brandt applauded the contacts between Warsaw and Bonn as the most comprehensive and intensive among Eastern and Western capitals, even if political dialogue on European affairs was still lacking. Finally, he argued that ‘Germany as a whole’ had decisively reversed the ‘fateful’ German

176 | Reconciliation Road

policy tradition of weakening or even destroying Poland; never again would Germany pursue a policy detrimental to Poland.42 This speech may indicate that Brandt was acutely aware that the German–Polish reconciliation process needed to take root at all levels of society. Even so, he hardly mentioned the revolutionary developments shaking Poland at the time. Against the background of structural deficiencies in the Polish economy and rising consumer prices, in 1980 a wave of strikes originating at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk set out to challenge the communist regime. In September 1980, the strike leader Lech Wałęsa became chairman of an independent trade union named Solidarność (Solidarity), whose membership mushroomed within a year to more than nine million. Solidarność was not a workers’ trade union in the traditional sense, but included diverse forces ranging from farmers to intellectuals and enjoyed significant backing from the Polish Church and Pope John Paul II. As Wałęsa pointed out in his autobiography, defending ‘freedom of expression’ as a ‘direct corollary of the Helsinki Agreement’ was a driving force of the Solidarity movement.43 The union’s initial demand for reorganization and democratization soon transformed into more radical calls to do away with the

FIGURE 6.1. Strike at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk, August 1980. For the West German leadership, the rise of the Solidarność movement in Poland exemplified the dilemma of how to retain Ostpolitik under changing circumstances. © Zenon Mirota, distributed under a CC-BY-SA-3.0-PL licence.

Maintaining Contacts with the East (1974–92) | 177

communist regime in Poland. Unable to cope with the mounting pressure, by October 1981 the leadership of the Polish Communist Party was passed from Edward Gierek to Stanisław Kania and eventually to Wojciech Jaruzelski, a general in the Polish army. During 1981, the revolutionary momentum started to proliferate from Poland to the Soviet republics of Latvia and Belorussia while the communist leaders of Romania, East Germany, Hungary and Czechoslovakia tried to push the Soviet leaders towards military intervention. However, the decision-makers in Moscow – notably Brezhnev and Andropov – feared that an invasion of Poland would lead to massive and ultimately unmanageable consequences at the political and economic levels. Coerced into terminating the situation with domestic forces, in December 1981 Jaruzelski imposed martial law, outlawed Solidarność and arrested its leadership. Jaruzelski eventually li ed martial law in July 1983, but the political repression continued, and many former leaders of the union remained in prison.44 Brandt initially expressed ‘heartfelt sympathy’ for the Polish people striving towards more freedom and later voiced his ‘indignation’ at the violence they suffered under martial law. Yet he insisted on West Germany not interfering in Polish domestic affairs, refused to support sanctions against the regime and, in January 1982, manifested relief that the imposition of martial law had at least saved Poland from Soviet invasion.45 When visiting Warsaw in December 1985, Brandt commemorated the fi eenth anniversary of the German–Polish Treaty together with the ruling elite and held extensive discussions with Jaruzelski, but declined Lech Wałęsa’s invitation to visit Gdańsk. Hence Brandt and Wałęsa did not meet and only exchanged le ers, in which Brandt emphasized Poland’s European role and explained that he considered Western pressure on the Polish regime to be counterproductive.46 Throughout the early 1980s Brandt’s allegedly passive and spineless a itude in the face of Polish human rights violations came in for harsh criticism from West German journalists, CDU/ CSU and SPD politicians, from Polish activists and fellow members of the Socialist International.47 A er the end of the Cold War, the historian Timothy Garton Ash sharply criticized ‘the makers of Ostpolitik’ for losing sight of their original goals by the 1980s, contending that the innovative approach of respecting the status quo in order to gradually overcome it had transformed into a conservative policy of simply respecting the status quo. Garton Ash argued that in the original hypothesis of Ostpolitik ‘stabilisation was seen as a means to liberalisation’ but over the years ‘the means began to be taken for an end’. According to Garton Ash’s blunt assessment, instead of encouraging the Solidarity revolution from below, Brandt pursued German–Polish reconciliation in co-operation with the regime and counted on reforms from above, even though the communist

178 | Reconciliation Road

rulers did not manifest any pronounced interest in reconciliation. Garton Ash’s argument, also published in German, had exerted considerable influence on more recent scholarly analyses of the topic.48 The critique that Brandt did not fully appreciate the significance of Solidarność for Poland’s future is indeed justified, but the claim that he had acquiesced to an exclusive top-down approach and to routine complacency about the status quo seems exaggerated. Faithful to the philosophy of Ostpolitik, in the early 1980s Brandt expressed his firm faith in the transformative power of historical developments and anticipated a transformation of the Eastern camp through evolution rather than revolution. He argued that embargoes only impaired the lives of the Polish people and called for increased co-operation across the Iron Curtain, as more contacts would ultimately prove beneficial for the Poles. In a speech to the US Congress in September 1983, Brandt voiced his conviction that ‘Russia as a superpower simply does not have the inner strength to absorb Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary’ and predicted that the Eastern system would eventually ‘fall’ as part of an ‘historical process’ but ‘not as a result of military pressure’.49 Even with the benefit of hindsight, Brandt’s a empts in the 1980s to set in motion Eastern reforms at governmental levels while encouraging East–West interaction at lower levels were not entirely misguided. Decisive change in the East did eventually originate from the top – not from Jaruzelski, Honecker or Ceaușescu but from Gorbachev. Brandt’s guiding principle of not interfering in Poland’s domestic affairs actually derived directly from the German–Polish Treaty of 1970, which stipulated respect for the sovereignty of all European states. For Brandt, not intervening in Poland’s turmoil in the early 1980s was a ma er of keeping his word and upholding the principles of Ostpolitik. On 1 September 1981, the forty-second anniversary of the Nazi invasion of Poland, Brandt reminded his countrymen that respecting Poland’s responsibility for its own domestic affairs was imperative, especially for the Germans.50 There was indeed some truth in his warning, evidenced by Polish reactions to international trade unions lending support to Solidarność. While the financial and moral assistance by the French Democratic Confederation of Labour passed untroubled, the Polish regime intervened against the involvement of the supposedly imperialist (West) German Trade Union Confederation. In January 1981 Wałęsa specifically declined to meet with West German unionists in order not to put a further strain on the relations between Solidarność and the Polish government.51 In sum, a er the Afghanistan crisis Brandt’s primary concern was to avoid another international war ‘if humanity is to avoid falling into Chaos’. He feared that a Soviet invasion of Poland would provoke a major international crisis that

Maintaining Contacts with the East (1974–92) | 179

‘humanity cannot afford’. Accordingly, in his pronouncements he tended to prioritize security and stability over the revolutionary objectives of the Solidarność movement and respect for human rights in Poland.52 The dilemma Brandt was facing in relations with Poland was not unique. The potential tension between ‘state security’, which emphasizes the protection and stability of the state, and ‘human security’, focusing on individual human rights and dignity, has been a topic of scholarly research since the 1990s.53 An additional perspective relates to the longer-term evolution of reconciliation processes. The SPD’s (and Brandt’s) Ostpolitik in the 1980s was no longer a new policy but built on the course of action determined in the early 1970s, hence the pursuit of reconciliation now took place in the second generation. From a theoretical viewpoint, the founding act of reconciliation is a ‘world rupturing’ event that breaks with past pa erns and initiates a fundamentally new policy. The founding principles enacted through this new beginning then become the guidelines for future actions.54 When Brandt initiated Ostpolitik and thus founded polity anew, he agreed with the governments of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe on the principles framing their future interaction. These principles found expression in the Eastern Treaties. A er a new beginning (or ‘constitution’), the next task is to ensure the survival and continuation of the new policy. Promoters of reconciliation in the second generation face a dilemma similar to that faced by revolutionaries, for example the French or US revolutionaries in the eighteenth century, who struggled to keep alive the spirit of the revolution a er the event. While the initiators of a new policy enjoy considerable freedom of action, future generations are denied this same freedom because it would threaten the stability and continuity of the process that has already been begun. In other words, the focus turns towards preserving the founding act and the essence of the initial step towards reconciliation. A theoretical way out of the dilemma lies in reframing the concern for stability and continuity through a new promise that preserves the essence of the beginning.55 In practical terms of German–Polish relations, the reframing of the principles guiding their reconciliation occurred relatively soon and naturally with the end of the Cold War.

A European Security Framework? A er taking office in October 1982, Chancellor Helmut Kohl (CDU) pledged to continue Ostpolitik as pursued by the social-liberal coalition and to respect the Eastern Treaties ‘in le er and spirit’. Like Schmidt, Kohl aimed at stability in international politics and calculability in rela-

180 | Reconciliation Road

tions with the East (in contrast to the unpredictable elements inherent in Brandt’s policy). In addition, Kohl’s Ostpolitik took a new turn by lending open support to Solidarność and establishing contacts with Eastern dissidents. For example, Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher (FDP) entertained a regular and lively exchange with the Czech dissident Jiří Dienstbier, who eventually became foreign minister of Czechoslovakia in December 1989.56 But against the background of the Cold War situation and Kohl’s main focus on accelerating the (Western) European integration process, until the late 1980s his government failed to imbue the stagnating relations with the East with new initiatives. Perhaps more importantly, a new dynamic developed domestically regarding the Nazi past. A er the social-liberal era and its emphasis on contrition, the governmental change of 1982 brought dissenting conservative voices to the forefront. Clearly referring to Brandt’s Kniefall, Franz-Josef Strauß (CSU) declared that the Germans finally needed to rise from their knees and instead walk proudly. Conservative intellectuals (such as Ernst Nolte and Andreas Hillgruber) published articles in the German press questioning the uniqueness of Nazi crimes and comparing them with the mass murders perpetrated by Stalin’s regime. By the mid-1980s, an increasingly confrontational Historikerstreit (historians’ controversy) filled the newspapers. Vigorous opposition to the conservative trend to relativize Nazi crimes and to ‘normalize’ German collective memory emerged not only from the SPD but also from within the CDU. On 8 May 1985, forty years a er the surrender of Nazi Germany, the West German President Richard von Weizsäcker (CDU) urged his fellow Germans in a powerful speech to look the truth in the eye and to mourn the six million murdered Jews and the innumerable Soviet and Polish people who lost their lives in a war initiated exclusively by Germans. Chancellor Kohl actually shared Weizsäcker’s aim of keeping alive the full awareness of historical crimes, but sometimes lacked the sensitivity to communicate his message appropriately. When visiting Israel in January 1984, Kohl spoke about the ‘mercy of late birth’ (die Gnade der späten Geburt) of his generation, which was widely interpreted as an attempt to avoid responsibility and to escape from the past – even though Kohl’s later statements conveyed a very different impression. Notably, his speech at Bergen-Belsen in April 1985 marked the first time that a West German chancellor spoke specifically about the crimes commi ed by the Wehrmacht on the Eastern front and against Soviet prisoners of war. Overall, the public discourse in West Germany soon rejected tendencies to relativize Nazi crimes and by the late 1980s a consensus had emerged among all political parties, united by the responsibility to fully and perpetually remember the past.57

Maintaining Contacts with the East (1974–92) | 181

Willy Brandt was scarcely involved in these debates and only in March 1987 did he firmly reject any a empt to reduce the historical responsibility for the unparalleled mass murders perpetrated by Nazi Germans.58 In East–West relations during the 1980s, Brandt developed a keen interest in conceiving structures that would bridge the gap dividing the continent. His focus was initially on military security, but when seemingly fixed political realities started to move and eventually unravelled under Gorbachev, the scope of potential pan-European structures widened. Brandt’s efforts in the last ten years of his life to explore structural changes qualify as an a empt to achieve what had not been possible during his chancellorship and – beyond his interest in German reunification – to prepare the next thicker (third) stage of reconciliation for the future. Having shelved the topic of European security for several years, Brandt rediscovered its urgency during the mounting crisis of the late 1970s. He came to the conclusion that ‘there is only common security’ and that ‘a partnership of security needs to be developed’, as he wrote to Brezhnev in November 1979.59 To develop such concepts of common security, Brandt once again relied on the analytical skills of Egon Bahr and made sure that his trusted friend became the West German representative on the United Nations’ ‘Independent Commission for Disarmament and Security’, created in September 1980 and headed by Sweden’s former prime minister Olof Palme.60 Bahr’s contribution proved decisive for the work of the Palme Commission. In a nine-page memorandum entitled ‘Common Security’ submi ed to the Commission in December 1981, he argued that NATO and the Warsaw Pact would ‘continue to exist for a long time’ and with unabated ideological rivalry. Following from this premise and from mutually assured destruction in case of nuclear war, Bahr concluded that the traditional way of seeking security through military superiority over the enemy no longer applied; there was no more ‘security from an enemy’ but only ‘security together with the enemy’. The new doctrine of common security therefore demanded ‘rethinking, the acceptance of the opponent as a partner’ in order to ensure common survival.61 The other members of the Palme Commission concurred with Bahr’s reasoning and decided to implement common security as the umbrella theme and title of their final report, presented in January 1982. The report included various recommendations on how to reduce the nuclear threat and for Europe notably proposed a 150-kilometre zone on either side of the East–West frontier in which no nuclear weapons would be deployed. Importantly, Bahr had found an international body that accepted and promoted his concepts, thereby enhancing the credibility of his conclusions.62 Henceforth, Willy Brandt regularly referred to the recommendations of the Palme Commission and in 1983 also revived the objective of a Eu-

182 | Reconciliation Road

ropean peace order. His goal was now ‘to modify the East–West confrontation in such a way that the relation between the alliances may lead to a European peace order’. Both superpowers would participate as guarantors of the new security system. Consistent with his former a itude as chancellor, Brandt emphasized in official statements that West Germany’s NATO membership was not negotiable and that common security could only be achieved through the existing alliances.63 Privately he was more ambivalent and admi ed that ‘the dismantling of the military blocs would certainly be an advantage for Europe’ yet would still be very difficult to achieve.64 In his contacts with Soviet and Polish officials Brandt intimated that the elements of a new European peace order might be an appropriate topic of discussion in the future. At the party congress in Essen in May 1984, the SPD adopted both the concept of common security and the objective of a European security order. Even if the party resolution explicitly aimed at ‘overcoming the blocs’ in the long term, the strategy remained vague and the meaning of a European peace order undefined.65 In 1984 and 1985, now in his early seventies, Brandt endeavoured to revitalize East–West détente by travelling in turn to Sofia, Moscow, Budapest, East Berlin, Weimar, Belgrade, Prague and Warsaw. He did so in his capacity as chairman of the SPD and without any government mandate and primarily promoted East–West co-operation at the level of his own responsibility – the party level. As Brandt explained at an SPD meeting in June 1985, without any progress on military aspects the overall process of détente risked withering away. In order to save détente despite the paralyzing blockage between Washington and Moscow, he favoured talks with Eastern officials on specific security issues like chemical weaponsfree zones, confidence-building measures and the unequivocally defensive nature of national defence policies. Brandt also emphasized the value of cultural contacts and ‘the need to foster Europe’s interconnection in economic ma ers’.66 Accordingly, between 1984 and 1989 the SPD created bilateral working groups with the communist parties of the Soviet Union, Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia and eventually presented joint reports on confidence-building measures, economic and environmental questions and the reduction of defence costs. Most controversial was the co-operation between the SPD and the East German communist party (SED) on security issues in Central Europe. With Hermann Axen (SED), Hans-Jochen Vogel and Egon Bahr (both SPD) taking leading roles, in 1985–86 the two parties elaborated joint proposals on the creation of a chemical weapons-free zone in Central Europe and a nuclear weapons-free corridor, 150 kilometres wide and stretching from the Baltic to Austria. According to contemporary accounts, Brandt manifestly disliked undue closeness to the East German regime but agreed to discuss security and

Maintaining Contacts with the East (1974–92) | 183

peace issues directly with Erich Honecker in September 1985 and again in September 1987. Brandt reiterated the consensus established with Stoph in 1970 to prevent another war emanating from German territories and called on Honecker to promote disarmament within the Eastern camp.67 When Brandt for the first time met with Mikhail Gorbachev, in late May 1985 in Moscow, the new Soviet leader welcomed the SPD’s programmatic idea of overcoming the blocs and in a preparatory talk with Bahr referred to the recommendations of the Palme Commission. Gorbachev notably expressed wholehearted support for Brandt’s favoured theme of nuclear disarmament and announced that the Soviet government was ‘ready to make the most radical decisions even to the point of banning nuclear weapons’. Although Brandt remained somewhat sceptical about Gorbachev’s sincerity, the two men developed an understanding of each other and engaged in a regular exchange of le ers over the following years.68 If Gorbachev’s position on disarmament and nuclear weapons was to some extent influenced by the West German Social Democrats remains a ma er for interpretation. Wilfried Loth argued that Brandt’s and Bahr’s security concepts were part of the intellectual architecture that informed the Soviet leader’s ‘new thinking’ and overall approach to security. Indeed, the Soviet member of the Palme Commission, Georgi Arbatov, had known Bahr since 1970 and in 1980–82 met regularly with Gorbachev to keep him informed on the Commission’s work. In February 1986, and in close co-operation with Arbatov, Gorbachev presented an official programme of ‘Common Security’ to the Soviet Communist Party and in his explanations followed the reasoning of the Palme Commission. Likewise, in his book Perestroika (1987) Gorbachev proclaimed his broad agreement with Willy Brandt on ma ers of international security and disarmament, and referred to ‘the many points of similarity’ between his own views and the report of the Palme Commission. Hence there is reason to believe that Brandt and Bahr did in fact exert a certain influence on Gorbachev and his pivotal initiatives for East–West disarmament.69 In their discussion in May 1985 Brandt encouraged Gorbachev to meet with US President Reagan – in order to jointly affirm that ‘there will be no World War III’ – and observed the subsequent rapprochement of the leaders of the two camps with great interest. Reagan had already modified his aggressive rhetoric against the Soviet ‘evil empire’ in 1984 and henceforth tended to point out the common interest in avoiding war and to designate nuclear weapons rather than the Soviet Union as the greatest threat to US security.70 The first Gorbachev–Reagan summit in Geneva (November 1985) served to break down the personal barriers between the two leaders and seemed to signal merely a small step in superpower détente. But the second meeting, in October 1986 in Reykjavik, led to a funda-

184 | Reconciliation Road

mental consensus between Reagan and Gorbachev that a world without nuclear weapons would be safer. They agreed verbally to eliminate all nuclear weapons within ten years and failed to sign a wri en agreement only because Reagan refused to give up his laser project in space (SDI), which later proved unfeasible. Nevertheless, Reagan’s extraordinary antinuclear stance in Reykjavik indicated to Gorbachev that the US president was ready to embrace bold initiatives. In February 1987 the Soviet leader surprised the West with a proposal to eliminate all medium-range missiles in Europe and eventually, in order to overcome US scepticism, the abolition of short-range missiles as well. Reagan not only considered the Soviet initiatives reasonable but increasingly perceived himself as Gorbachev’s partner in ending the Cold War. In December 1987 the two leaders signed the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty abolishing an entire class of nuclear missiles and thereby clearing the path for further reductions of conventional and nuclear forces. Two months later, in February 1988, Gorbachev announced the complete withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan, which for the US government signalled the official end of the ‘Second Cold War’.71 The Western Europeans had long been in favour of East–West détente and initially viewed US–Soviet rapprochement with positive circumspection. They were sceptical about whether Gorbachev was offering more than merely a new rhetoric and whether he would even be able to implement real change in Soviet foreign policy. Margaret Thatcher, a hardline anti-communist, was, rather surprisingly, the first Western European leader to give credence to Gorbachev’s genuine intention to reform the Soviet Union. At the other end of the spectrum was Helmut Kohl, who in an interview with the US magazine Newsweek in October 1986, compared Gorbachev to Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi minister for propaganda. West German–Soviet relations suffered grievously from this major diplomatic faux pas until the Kohl–Gorbachev relationship improved dramatically two years later. The Reykjavik summit also gave rise to justified fears that Reagan and Gorbachev would decide on vital European security issues without even consulting the Europeans. Eventually, Western European scepticism turned into support and even admiration for Gorbachev, as the sincerity of his new course gradually became apparent in 1987–88 and the meetings between the Soviet and the Western European leaders became more frequent.72 While Willy Brandt manifestly regre ed that Reykjavik had not produced any wri en agreement to abolish nuclear weapons, he shared the concern that the superpowers might decide on key issues of European security among themselves. In this context he quoted an African saying that ‘the grass will suffer when elephants fight and it will not be any be er off when they make love’. Therefore, he called on the

Maintaining Contacts with the East (1974–92) | 185

Europeans to take a more active role and to develop their own, European concepts on common security.73 Brandt had not held any governmental office since May 1974 and in June 1987 also handed over the chairmanship of the SPD to Hans-Jochen Vogel. A new generation of social democrats was ready to take the lead and the old chairman also lacked the motivation to deal with daily party issues.74 Nevertheless, he continued to express his views on broader aspects of European politics and notably on the prospects of a European peace order. Brandt openly admi ed that his approach to the la er topic remained inconsistent. On the one hand, he acknowledged that his objective was ‘to replace, some day, the two alliances with a European system of security’ and by September 1987 reckoned that the goal of common security no longer appeared utopian. On the other hand, he insisted that ‘NATO and the Warsaw Pact will continue to be indispensable factors of stability’; he rejected the neutralization of the two German states as a destabilizing and dangerous illusion and maintained that the Eastern and Western systems remained fundamentally incompatible.75 Characteristically, Brandt did not a empt to reconcile these contradictions but referred to the impossibility of holding history still or of anticipating the unfolding of future events. What he did claim with confidence was that relations between Eastern and Western Europe would be decisive for the future of the Germans and the German states. In this context he stated in September 1985: ‘If Europe not only co-operates but grows closer together, this will be good for peace and not bad for us in Germany.’76 Brandt was still convinced that the key to resolving the German question lay in Moscow, which was one reason why he sought to discuss European security issues in particular with Gorbachev. At their second meeting in the Kremlin, in April 1988, Brandt proposed to elaborate a ‘European answer’ to disarmament questions and other open issues in East–West relations. Gorbachev agreed that a new European project was required to build a ‘common European home’ and argued that it should be different from either the Eastern European or the Western European approaches. The meeting ended with a decision to create a working group on the construction of a common European home and in September 1988 delegations of the SPD and the Soviet Communist Party actually started to discuss the issue (without achieving any concrete outcome).77 Since early 1987, Gorbachev had been reassessing the role of Western Europe and increasingly perceived it as a potential partner in the political, economic and cultural spheres. His public references to a common European home a racted significant international a ention and in June 1988 a ‘common declaration’ by the European Community and the COMECON seemed to indicate economic co-operation as the first step

186 | Reconciliation Road

towards such a pan-European project. Brandt publicly expressed sympathy for the notion of a common European home but pointed out that the decisive task of reaching agreement on the house rules still remained.78 When he visited Gorbachev in Moscow for the third time in October 1989, much to his regret, Brandt discovered that the discussion on house rules no longer appeared on the meeting agenda. In the meantime, revolutionary changes swept over Eastern Europe, spearheaded not by politicians but by the Eastern European peoples with a newfound faith in their capacity to shape their countries’ destinies. Following Gorbachev’s address at the United Nations in December 1988, where he designated ‘freedom of choice’ as ‘a universal principle to which there should be no exception’, the Eastern opposition movements first gained momentum in Poland.79 President Jaruzelski eventually agreed to the legalization of Solidarność and the partial introduction of democratic elements into Polish politics; by August 1989 he accepted shared leadership with a Solidarność representative, newly elected Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki. Emboldened by the Polish example, more radical reformers within the Hungarian Communist Party gained the upper hand in June 1989 and announced completely free elections for the following year. In September 1989 the Hungarian government decided to open the border to Austria and thus to allow free travel from East to West. The Soviet troops were still physically present in Eastern Europe but had orders not to intervene even as the communist structures started to disintegrate. The East German population likewise demanded reforms and by early October organized massive manifestations in Leipzig, Dresden and East Berlin. Against this background Brandt met with Gorbachev on 17 October 1989. Archival evidence examined for this book indicates that the meeting was actually a turning point, in the sense that Brandt shelved the hopes he had previously invested in the project of a European peace order and in Gorbachev’s ability to create a common roof for the two German states. In mid-September 1989, Gorbachev’s adviser, Nikolai Portugalov, had indicated to one of Brandt’s associates that ‘a discussion on the political perspectives of the two German states’ was urgently needed, for example to launch the idea of a confederation, and that Moscow would be amenable to supporting a public initiative by Brandt in this context.80 In midOctober, West German journalists observed that Brandt arrived in Moscow with high expectations and that he was prepared for an in-depth discussion with Gorbachev on the German question. With palpable emotion Brandt delivered a high-profile lecture at Lomonosov University on ‘New Thinking: Opportunities for Europe and the World’, in which he proposed to ‘institutionally shape’ a new European peace order. As the first con-

Maintaining Contacts with the East (1974–92) | 187

FIGURE 6.2. Third Moscow meeting between Mikhail Gorbachev (front le ) and Willy Brandt (front right) on 17 October 1989. Brandt had travelled to the Soviet Union with high hopes but le disappointed by Gorbachev’s non-commi al a itude. Brandt’s delegation included his long-time advisor Egon Bahr (behind, le ) and Gerhard Schröder (far right), who later became German chancellor. © J.H. Darchinger / Friedrich-Ebert-Sti ung.

crete steps to this end, he recommended the creation of a ‘European security agency’ in Berlin and intensified co-operation between the European Community and the countries of Eastern and Central Europe. A er the speech, he intimated that he wished to explore with Gorbachev ‘how the two German states might fit’ into a European structure in a way acceptable to the Soviet Union.81 However, the subsequent discussion with Gorbachev primarily revolved around domestic Soviet reforms. When Brandt finally proposed discussing a ‘common roof’ for the two German states in the broader context of a European peace order, the Soviet leader dismissed the issue and stated that ‘today this question is not on the agenda’. Brandt came out of the meeting visibly disappointed.82 In the public debate on the future of the two German states, which evolved over the next months, Brandt did not advocate the creation of a European peace order as an immediate objective. Apparently, he deemed it no longer feasible or even desirable in an unstable international environment. During the rapidly unfolding events from the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989 until the establishment of German unity on 3 October 1990, Western media regularly asked Brandt to comment and share his

188 | Reconciliation Road

views. Three elements characterized his a itude in this period: to let ‘the imaginativeness of history’83 unfold without trying to anticipate the end result; to let the East German people vote in freedom on their association with West Germany; and to hold on to existing Western structures as guarantors of stability as long as needed. While Brandt considered 9 November 1989 a ‘great day’ in German history, he also observed that ‘more chaos than reason’ had led to the fall of the Wall.84 On 11 November he noted the resulting ‘lability’ of East Germany and to re-establish some stability he advocated free elections as soon as possible. On the same day he wrote to Gorbachev that ‘maintaining political and security stability’ was decisive in constructing Europe’s future.85 Following the distinctions made by Mary Elise Saro e, from late 1989 until summer 1990 four main security models competed against each other. (1) The Soviet model of November 1989 aimed to restore the four-power control over Germany exactly as organized in 1945. (2) In November 1989, Helmut Kohl proposed emulating the nineteenth-century German Confederation, with the two German states keeping their internal orders but under a confederate roof. (3) In early 1990, Gorbachev abandoned his previous plan and now prioritized the concept of a new pan-European security structure that would allow German unity and replace the two military alliances. (4) In response to Gorbachev’s proposal, from February 1990 the Western allies – especially Helmut Kohl and the US government – promoted the plan of simply extending the Western structures to East Germany.86

By July 1990 Gorbachev had accepted the fourth model and consented to NATO membership for a united Germany and the integration of East Germany into the EC as a new part of the Federal Republic. Throughout this period of intense international negotiations, and in contrast to many SPD leaders, Brandt largely supported the unification policy pursued by Chancellor Kohl and unequivocally dismissed the Soviet security plans for Germany. Moscow’s anachronistic idea of returning to the status of 1945 was diametrically opposed to Brandt’s conviction that the Germans were co-builders of Europe’s future and not mere objects of great power decisions. Already in mid-December 1989 Brandt declared in an interview that the Federal Republic of Germany was to remain a loyal member of the EC and NATO and in February 1990 unequivocally rejected Gorbachev’s idea of establishing a united but militarily neutral Germany within a pan-European structure.87 In a public speech in early June 1990, Brandt pointed out that he saw no reason why the Federal Republic should

Maintaining Contacts with the East (1974–92) | 189

renounce its membership of the well-functioning NATO organization. At the same time, he did not bury the project of a new European security system but rather postponed it until a er the achievement of German unity (Brandt avoided the popular term re-unification as inappropriate). Egon Bahr, by contrast, in late June 1990 publicly criticized the continued existence of NATO as a relic of Cold War thinking and advocated the creation of a new security structure for the two German states, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Denmark. The obvious discrepancy between Brandt’s and Bahr’s positions can be interpreted as symptomatic of the ongoing disagreements within the SPD. At the same time, Bahr’s pompous declaration may have served the objective of saving face vis-à-vis the East a er he had propagated common security for many years.88 From October 1990 until his death in October 1992, Brandt continued to comment on how to organize pan-European co-operation. He saw new ‘opportunities for real disarmament’ a er the end of the Cold War but cautioned that securing peace in Europe was yet to be accomplished.89 He keenly observed the evolution of the existing frameworks – EC, CSCE and NATO – and reached different conclusions regarding their future relevance. As to the European Community, Brandt predicted in May 1991 that its Eastern enlargement would be decisive in ensuring that the continent actually grew together and in preventing the widening of the poverty gap that would further divide Europe. He argued that ‘openness, understanding and willingness to help’ would eventually prove beneficial for Western Europe, rather than ‘ignorance and isolation’. One year later he stated that the European Community (soon to be called the European Union) had a vital interest in integrating as many European countries as possible and in establishing close economic and cultural contacts with the former republics of the Soviet Union, disbanded in December 1991. Yet he deemed it unrealistic to integrate Russia and expand the EC as far as Vladivostok from the viewpoint of geopolitical and demographic balance.90 As to his lasting desire to establish pan-European security structures, Brandt stated in March 1992 that its eventual achievement was essential to avoid future tragedies. He emphasized that the term security should not only refer to military security but needed to include economic and social aspects as well as issues related to poverty and human rights. In his very last public appearance, on 4 May 1992 in Luxembourg, Brandt expressed regret that the CSCE remained ‘only weakly anchored as an institution’ and lacked any ‘legally binding international instruments’ to implement its principles. By contrast, he was impressed with the transformation of NATO ‘from a confrontational military alliance towards a co-operative security agency’ and argued that in the absence of other valid security instruments, NATO

190 | Reconciliation Road

was to act as an integrative force and to open the way ‘towards common, pan-European security’. At the same time, he insisted that ‘it remains an open question what the final architecture of Europe will look like’.91 In October 1991, Brandt was diagnosed with colon cancer and underwent surgery. A er another unsuccessful surgical intervention to remove new cancer cells in late May 1992, he spent the last months of his life at home, cared for by his wife. Willy Brandt passed away on 8 October 1992.

Notes 1. D. Ikeda, A Global Ethic of Coexistence: Toward a ‘Life-Sized’ Paradigm for Our Age. Peace Proposal Presented to the United Nations (Tokyo: Soka Gakkai, 2003), 2. 2. Crocker, ‘Past Wrongs’, 60. Ramsbotham et al., Conflict Resolution, 298–307. 3. Opinion poll of May 1974, in E. Noelle-Neumann (ed.), Allensba er Jahrbu der Demoskopie 1974–1976 (Vienna: Fritz Molden, 1976), 113. 4. Schöllgen, Willy Brandt, 215 (quoting Brandt’s le er of 6 May 1974 to Heinemann), 227– 28. Seeba er, Willy Brandt, 260–82. Merseburger, Willy Brandt, 770–71. 5. H. S midt and E. Bahr, Die Erinnerung an Willy Brandt und ein Rü bli auf die gemeinsame Zeit (Berlin: Bundeskanzler-Willy-Brandt-Sti ung, 2009), 27 (S midt quote). Spohr, Global Chancellor, 44–54. Pfeil, ‘Aus Gegnern’, paragraph 14. 6. Inaugural Address of President Jimmy Carter, 20 January 1977, h ps://www.jimmy carterlibrary.gov/assets/documents/speeches/inaugadd.phtml (last accessed 30 March 2020). ‘Editorial Note’, FRUS 1969–76, vol. 37(1), 375–76, h ps://history.state.gov/historical documents/frus1969-76v38p1/d69 (last accessed 30 March 2020) (Ford quote). 7. Brezhnev speech, twenty-fi h congress of the CPSU, February–March 1976, quoted in G. Roberts, The Soviet Union in World Politics: Coexistence, Revolution and Cold War (London: Routledge, 2005), 63. 8. Loth, Overcoming the Cold War, 128–63 (162 for the Carter quote of 28 January 1980). O. Njølstad, ‘The Carter Legacy: Entering the Second Era of the Cold War’, in O. Njølstad (ed.), The Last Decade of the Cold War: From Conflict Escalation to Conflict Transformation (London: Frank Cass: 2004), 196–225. 9. Zubok, Failed Empire, 227–29, 259–64. See also M. Galeo i, Afghanistan: The Soviet Union’s Last War (London: Routledge, 2012) (first published 1995). 10. G. Lundestad, The United States and Western Europe since 1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 201–10. See also A. Bresselau von Bressensdorf, Frieden dur Kommunikation: Das System Gens er und die Entspannungspolitik im Zweiten Kalten Krieg 1979–1982/83 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015). 11. B. Fischer, ‘US Foreign Policy under Reagan and Bush’, in Leffler and Westad, Cambridge History 3: 270 (quotes). R.M. Collins, Transforming America: Politics and Culture in the Reagan Years (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 204–6. 12. On Reagan’s own viewpoint, see R. Reagan, An American Life (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990), 547. 13. Zubok, Failed Empire, 273–75. Loth, Overcoming the Cold War, 171–72. A. Manchanda, ‘When Truth is Stranger than Fiction: The Able Archer Incident’, Cold War History 9(1) (2009), 111–33.

Maintaining Contacts with the East (1974–92) | 191

14. Quoted in J. Weisberg, Ronald Reagan (New York: Henry Holt, 2016), 91. 15. G. Lundestad, ‘“Imperial Overstretch”, Mikhail Gorbachev, and the End of the Cold War’, Cold War History 1(1) (2000), 5. 16. A. Brown, ‘Perestroika and the End of the Cold War’, Cold War History 7(1) (2007), 1–17. For further references on the topic, see Leffler and Westad, Cambridge History 3. See also F. Romero, ‘Cold War Historiography at the Crossroads’, Cold War History 14(4) (2014), 685–703. 17. On Brandt’s le ers to Eastern European leaders in 1976–82, see Berliner Ausgabe 9: 182– 86, 195–98, 201–2, 218–21, 234–36, 252–53, 305–6, 351–52. 18. Le er Brandt to Brezhnev, 7 January 1976, Berliner Ausgabe 9: 175. This volume includes twenty-three documents with exchanges between Brandt and Brezhnev, from 1975 to the la er’s death in 1982. 19. Le er Brandt to Brezhnev, 9 May 1977, Berliner Ausgabe 9: 198–99 (quotes). Brandt statement for the press, 15 August 1978, Berliner Ausgabe 9: 242–43. 20. Le er Brandt to Brezhnev, 19 February 1980, Berliner Ausgabe 9: 270–71. F. Fis er, ‘Einleitung’, in Berliner Ausgabe 9: 34–36, 47, 56. See also S midt, ‘Deuts landpolitik’, 233–35. 21. Le er Brandt to S midt, 21 September 1981, Berliner Ausgabe 5: 350–51. 22. Quoted in Hofmann, Brandt und S midt, 225. 23. Brandt speech, plenary session 09/130, 25 November 1982, 8,042–46 (reconciliation on page 8,042), h p://dipbt.bundestag.de/doc/btp/09/09130.pdf (last accessed 30 March 2020). Schmidt, ‘Deutschlandpolitik’, 238. 24. Zubok, Failed Empire, 268–70. K. Czerkawski, ‘The Indebtedness of Socialist Countries to the West’, Eastern European Economics 21(1) (1982), 89. D. Bingen, ‘Ostpolitik und demokratis er Wandel in Mi el- und Osteuropa: der Testfall Polen’, Ar iv für Sozialges i te 45 (2005), 129–31. 25. Rudolph, Wirts a sdiplomatie, 415–16. S larp, ‘Untermauerung’, 99–100. Gross, ‘German Economy’, 89. On German reunification, see T. Forsberg, ‘Economic Incentives, Ideas, and the End of the Cold War’, Journal of Cold War Studies 7(2) (2005), 142–64. 26. B. Marshall, The New Germany and Migration in Europe (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), 8–9. 27. Wolfrum, Mauer, 121–30. M. Peter, Die Bundesrepublik im KSZE-Prozess 1975–1983: Die Umkehrung der Diplomatie (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015), 198–200, 530–32. Bender, Neue Ostpolitik, 254–57, 360. Po hoff, Im S a en, 236–61. 28. Thomas, Helsinki Effect, title quote. 29. Author’s interview with Osmo Apunen, 10 January 2017. 30. K. Kunter, Die Kir en im KSZE-Prozess 1968–1978 (Stu gart: Kohlhammer, 2000), 206–8. Peter, Umkehrung der Diplomatie, 45–47. A. Mihr, ‘Amnesty International, die Mens enre te und der KSZE-Prozess: Der Fall der DDR’, in M. Peter and H. Wentker (eds), Die KSZE im Ost-West-Konflikt: Internationale Politik und gesells a li e Transformation 1975–1990 (Muni : Oldenbourg, 2012), 247–48. 31. Thomas, Helsinki Effect, 95–99, 272–75. S.B. Snyder, Human Rights Activism and the End of the Cold War: A Transnational History of the Helsinki Network (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 57–78, 246–48. 32. Snyder, Human Rights Activism, 157–222. Thomas, Helsinki Effect, 220–56, 278–80. See also Morgan, Final Act. S. Kotkin, Uncivil Society: 1989 and the Implosion of the Communist Establishment (New York: Modern Library, 2009). 33. Brandt book manuscript ‘Europa’, Dra chapter ‘Kleine Schri e’ part I/2 (unpaged), box 98; ‘Ein Volk’ (page F), box 102; ‘Von kleinen Schri en’ (page I), box 103 (quotes); ‘Ohne Drehbuch’ (unpaged), box 106, B25, WBA.

192 | Reconciliation Road

34. Brandt interview with the Financial Times, Le Monde and Süddeutsche Zeitung, 14 December 1989, Berliner Ausgabe 10: 413 (quotes). In the same sense, Brandt speeches on 10 November and 6 December 1989, ibid., 389, 401. 35. Le er Brandt to Brezhnev, 7 January 1976, Berliner Ausgabe 9: 175. Brandt interviews with Die Zeit, 26 August 1977 and 5 February 1982, ibid., 207, 364. Sources mentioned in order of the quotes. 36. Brandt statement at the tenth anniversary of Charta 77, 26 December 1986, Berliner Ausgabe 10: 308. 37. Brandt statement at the tenth anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act, 26 July 1985, box 999, A3, WBA (quotes). Brandt interview with Der Spiegel, 18 May 1981, Berliner Ausgabe 9: 312. Brandt spee at the Muni Kammerspiele, 18 November 1984, Berliner Ausgabe 10: 198–99. 38. Brandt’s contribution to a Festschri for Reiulf Steens, 5 May 1983, Berliner Ausgabe 10: 135 (quotes). Brandt statement at the tenth anniversary of Charta 77, 26 December 1986, ibid., 308. Brandt book manuscript ‘Europa’, dra apter ‘Von kleinen S ri en’ (writing started in August 1990), box 103, B25, WBA. 39. Public statements by Strauß and Kohl, 24 and 28 October 1975, Ar iv der Gegenwart, 34,468–75 (34,468 for the Strauß quote). 40. Brandt statement for the press, 4 November 1975, Pressemi eilungen der SPD 1958–1998. 41. Brandt statement at the occasion of the fi h anniversary of the Treaty of Warsaw, 5 December 1975, Berliner Ausgabe 9: 165–67 (quotes). Brandt interview with the Polish magazine Tygodnik Powsze ny, 17 February 1976, Pressemi eilungen der SPD 1958–1998. 42. Brandt spee in Bonn, 22 November 1980, Berliner Ausgabe 9: 297–99. 43. L. Wałęsa, A Way of Hope (New York: Henry Holt, 1987), 97. M. Molnár, La démocratie se lève à l’Est. Société civile et communisme en Europe de l’Est: Pologne et Hongrie (Geneva: Graduate Institute Publications, 2014), 242–67. 44. Loth, Overcoming the Cold War, 173–76. Zubok, Failed Empire, 266–70. 45. Brandt statement for the press, 29 August 1980, Pressemi eilungen der SPD 1958–1998, h p://library.fes.de/cgi-bin/digibert.pl?id=014807&dok=27/014807 (last accessed 30 March 2020). Brandt article for sozialdemokrat magazin, 29 January 1982, h p://library.fes .de/cgi-bin/digibert.pl?id=015585&dok=29/015585 (last accessed 30 March 2020). 46. Le er Brandt to Wałęsa, 13 December 1985, Berliner Ausgabe 10: 293–94. 47. B. Rother, ‘Zwis en Solidarität und Friedenssi erung: Willy Brandt und Polen in den 1980er Jahren’, in Boll and Ru niewicz, Nie mehr, 226–37. 48. Garton Ash, In Europe’s Name, 180–83, 306. T. Garton Ash, Im Namen Europas: Deuts land und der geteilte Kontinent (Muni : Hanser, 1993). Cf. Bingen, ‘Testfall Polen’, 127– 34. See also Seebacher, Willy Brandt, 349, on Brandt’s assessment of Garton Ash. 49. Brandt statement to the US Congress, 29 September 1983, Berliner Ausgabe 10: 170–71 (quotes). Rother, ‘Zwis en Solidarität’, 229–31. Brandt article for sozialdemokrat magazin, 29 January 1982, Pressemi eilungen der SPD 1958–1998. See also Brandt, My Life, 438, 440. 50. Brandt statement to the press, 30 August 1981, Pressemi eilungen der SPD 1958–1998. Treaty of Warsaw, Preamble, 7 December 1970, h ps://www.cvce.eu/content/publication/ 1999/1/1/7f3363b0-2705-472a-b535-c42bd229f9e2/publishable_en.pdf (last accessed 30 March 2020). 51. N. Bégin, ‘Kontakte zwis en Gewerks a en in Ost und West: Die Auswirkungen von Solidarność in Deuts land und Frankrei . Ein Verglei ’, Ar iv für Sozialges i te 45 (2005), 322–24. 52. Le er Brandt to Brezhnev, 12 August 1980, Berliner Ausgabe 9: 279 (first quote). Brandt statement to the press, 29 August 1980, Pressemi eilungen der SPD 1958–1998 (second quote).

Maintaining Contacts with the East (1974–92) | 193

53. For an overview of the debates and further references, see R. Jenkins, Peacebuilding: From Concept to Commission (London: Routledge, 2013), 18–43. 54. Schaap, Political Reconciliation, 87. 55. Ibid., 90–93. 56. Kohl, governmental declaration, plenary session 09/121, 13 October 1982, 7,222–23, h p://dipbt.bundestag.de/doc/btp/09/09121.pdf (last accessed 30 March 2020). Kohl, governmental declaration, plenary session 10/004, 4 May 1983, 73, h p://dipbt.bundes tag.de/doc/btp/10/10004.pdf (last accessed 30 March 2020) (quote). Feldman, Policy of Reconciliation, 37, 236, 281. For more detail, see H.P. S warz, Helmut Kohl: Eine politis e Biographie (Muni : Deuts e Verlags-Anstalt, 2012). 57. Lind, Sorry States, 131–36. Morina, Legacies of Stalingrad, 224–27. Herf, Divided Memory, 355–61. Wolff-Powęska, Memory as Burden, 212–17. 58. Meyer, Die SPD, 477–78. 59. Le er Brandt to Brezhnev, 14 November 1979, Berliner Ausgabe 9: 247. 60. W. Loth, ‘Mikhail Gorbachev, Willy Brandt, and European Security’, Journal of European Integration History 11(1) (2005), 46. 61. Bahr memorandum, ‘Common Security’, November 1981, box 597, Depositum Bahr, AdsD. 62. Report, ‘8th Meeting, Tokyo’, 4–6 December 1981, box 587, Depositum Bahr, AdsD. The Independent Commission on Disarmament and Security Issues, Common Security: A Programme for Disarmament (London: Pan Books, 1982). 63. Brandt’s contribution to a Festschri for Reiulf Steens, 5 May 1983, Berliner Ausgabe 10: 130–36 (quote on page 131). In the same sense, ibid., 126, 143–44, 151, 279. 64. Le er Brandt to Petra Kelly, 11 October 1982, box 134, A11.2, WBA. 65. German–Soviet meeting, 29 November 1983, Berliner Ausgabe 10: 173. Brandt speech at the Royal Castle, Warsaw, 7 December 1985, ibid., 285. S.A. Heinlein, Gemeinsame Sierheit: Egon Bahrs si erheitspolitis e Konzeption und die Kontinuität sozialdemokratis er Entspannungsvorstellungen (Münster: Waxmann, 1993), 121–25, 197–99. 66. Brandt speech at an SPD parliamentary group meeting, 11 June 1985, Berliner Ausgabe 10: 231–32. 67. Interview Bahr with Westdeuts er Rundfunk, 14 February 1986, box 696, Depositum Bahr, AdsD. Meeting Brandt–Hone er, East Berlin, 19 September 1985, Berliner Ausgabe 10: 251, 261. B. Rother and W. S midt, ‘Einleitung’, Berliner Ausgabe 10: 30–41. Merseburger, Willy Brandt, 814. R. Reißig, Dialog dur die Mauer: Die umstri ene Annäherung von SPD und SED (Frankfurt: Campus, 2002), 30. 68. Meeting Brandt–Gorba ev, 27 May 1985, Berliner Ausgabe 10: 219–30 (quote on page 224). Bahr, Zu meiner Zeit, 556–57. Brandt, My Life, 371–77. 69. Loth, ‘Mikhail Gorbachev’, 46–53. M. Gorbachev, Perestroika: New Thinking for our Country and the World (London: William Collins, 1987), 196, 206–7 (quote on page 207). Arbatov, System, 303–4, 321. In the same sense as Loth: Merseburger, Willy Brandt, 820–22. More reluctant than Loth: S midt, ‘Deuts landpolitik’, 244. Garton Ash, In Europe’s Name, 119, 169. 70. See especially Reagan’s ‘Address to the Nation’, 16 January 1984, h ps://www.reagan library.gov/research/speeches/11684a (last accessed 30 March 2020). Fischer, ‘US Foreign Policy’, 272–73. 71. Collins, Transforming America, 219–27. R.E. Powaski, Return to Armageddon: The United States and the Nuclear Arms Race, 1981–99 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 53–86. 72. J.M. Hanhimäki, B. Schoenborn and B. Zanche a, Transatlantic Relations since 1945: An Introduction (London: Routledge, 2012), 107–14.

194 | Reconciliation Road

73. Brandt speech at SIPRI (English text), Stockholm, 18 September 1987, box 884, Depositum Bahr, AdsD (quote). Le er Brandt to Gorbachev, 10 November 1986, Berliner Ausgabe 10: 306–7 (on Reykjavik). 74. Merseburger, Willy Brandt, 798–803. 75. Brandt speech at the Royal Castle, Warsaw, 7 December 1985, Berliner Ausgabe 10: 284 (first quote). Brandt speech at SIPRI, Stockholm, 18 September 1987, box 884, Depositum Bahr, AdsD (second quote). See also Berliner Ausgabe 10: 193, 207, 303, 318–23. 76. Brandt speech at the education centre Wedding, Berlin, 5 September 1985, box 999, A3, WBA (quote). Brandt speech at the Munich Kammerspiele, 18 November 1984, Berliner Ausgabe 10: 202. Meeting Brandt–Honecker, 19 September 1985, ibid., 253. 77. Meeting Brandt–Gorbachev, 5 April 1988, Berliner Ausgabe 10: 324–41, 616–20 (annotations). See also Gorbachev’s report on the meeting to the Politburo, on 14 April 1988, in A. Galkin and A. Tschernjajew (eds), Michail Gorbatschow und die deutsche Frage: Sowjetische Dokumente 1986–1991 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2011), 74–76. 78. M.P. Rey, ‘Gorbachev’s New Thinking and Europe, 1985–1989’, in F. Bozo, M.P. Rey, N.P. Ludlow and L. Nuti (eds), Europe and the End of the Cold War: A Reappraisal (London: Routledge, 2008), 27–31. Brandt speech, plenary session 11/150, 16 June 1989, 11,193, h p://dipbt.bundestag.de/doc/btp/11/11150.pdf (last accessed 30 March 2020). 79. Address by M. Gorbachev, UN General Assembly, New York, 7 December 1988, h p:// digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/116224 (last accessed 30 March 2020). 80. Memo Biermann on his meeting with Portugalov on 12 September 1989, box 86, A19, WBA. 81. Manuscript, Brandt lecture at the Lomonosov University, Moscow, 16 October 1989, box 86, A19, WBA. O. Ihlau, ‘Deutschstunde’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 18 October 1989. M. Riese, ‘Zufrieden ist Brandt nicht’, Die Rheinpfalz, 18 October 1989. 82. Meeting Brandt–Gorba ev, 17 October 1989, Berliner Ausgabe 10: 369–79 (quotes on page 376), 628–31. Riese, ‘Zufrieden’, box 86, A19, WBA. 83. Brandt interview with Der Spiegel, 23 October 1989, Berliner Ausgabe 10: 383. 84. Brandt interview with Le Figaro, 8 February 1990, Berliner Ausgabe 10: 442. 85. Meeting of the SPD party executive, 11 November 1989, Berliner Ausgabe 10: 394 (first quote). Le er Brandt to Gorbachev, 11 November 1989, ibid., 393 (second quote). 86. M.E. Saro e, 1989: The Struggle to Create Post-Cold War Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), 1–10, 48–149. 87. Brandt interview with the Korean newspaper Dong-A Ilbo, 1 April 1990, box 1,071, A3, WBA. Brandt interview with the Financial Times, Le Monde and Süddeutsche Zeitung, 14 December 1989, Berliner Ausgabe 10: 412–14. Le er Brandt to Gorbachev, 13 February 1990, ibid., 444–45. 88. Brandt spee at the Römerberg Conversations in Frankfurt, 8 June 1990, Berliner Ausgabe 10: 449. Bahr, ‘Si erheit dur Annäherung’, Die Zeit, 29 June 1990. On the debates within the SPD, with emphasis on internal disagreements, see D.F. Sturm, Uneinig in die Einheit: Die Sozialdemokratie und die Vereinigung Deuts lands 1989/90 (Bonn: Dietz, 2006). On Brandt’s security preferences in 1989–90, with emphasis on his trust in the United States, see Seebacher, Willy Brandt, 304–16. 89. Brandt speech, Nobel Symposium in Oslo, 6 December 1991, published text, box 1,103, A3, WBA. 90. Brandt spee , Friedri -Ebert-Sti ung in Bonn, 16 May 1991, box 1,089, A3, WBA (quotes). Brandt article in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 8 May 1991, Berliner Ausgabe 10: 501. Brandt speech, social democratic congress in Luxembourg, 4 May 1992, ibid., 538–42.

Maintaining Contacts with the East (1974–92) | 195

91. Brandt interview with tagebla , 6 May 1992, box 1,106, A3, WBA (quote in last sentence). Brandt speech in Luxembourg, 4 May 1992, Berliner Ausgabe 10: 542–45 (other quotes). Brandt statement in honour of Egon Bahr, 18 March 1992, box 1,103, A3, WBA. Rother and Schmidt, ‘Einleitung’, in Berliner Ausgabe 10: 98–103.

CONCLUSION

( In the chapters of this book, I have retraced and analysed Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik with regard to reconciliation from its conception in the 1950s and 1960s until the end of the Cold War. This is a new scholarly approach to Ostpolitik as the academic literature has not yet extensively addressed this topic. While Brandt’s policy towards Eastern Europe has o en been associated with reconciliation in a general manner, scholarly accounts tend to focus on only one specific aspect in this context – Brandt’s emblematic Kniefall at the Warsaw Ghe o memorial in December 1970. This dramatic gesture of contrition for Nazi crimes, acknowledging the immeasurable suffering inflicted by Germans in the past, was indeed an important element opening the road towards the reconciliation not only of the Polish people but also the other peoples of Eastern Europe with the Germans. Yet Brandt’s reconciliation policy was more than a fleeting apology; it involved various aspects and different levels of Ostpolitik. One framework of analysis in this book has been to differentiate between contributions to reconciliation by top-level leaders, by middle-level leaders behind the scenes and by the mass of people at the grassroots level. Especially when examined from a long-term perspective, Brandt’s Ostpolitik encompassed all three levels. His concrete measures aiming to ameliorate relations across the Iron Curtain actually started at the grassroots level: the travel pass agreement of December 1963 enabled the brief reunion of families divided by the Berlin Wall. New opportunities for individual travel and grassroots exchange between East and West also resulted directly from the Eastern Treaties negotiated by Brandt’s government in the early 1970s. Not to be forgo en are Chancellor Brandt’s travels to meet with Eastern officials, creating significant moments of interaction between a West German leader and his large delegation with local populations. This served to project a new image u erly different from the dominant Eastern view of aggressive and imperialist West Germans. As a general rule, if the purpose of reconciliation fails to take root at the grassroots level, the intended process of transforming relations is unlikely to Notes for this chapter begin on page 204.

Conclusion | 197

develop over long periods of time. The evolution of grassroots awareness on the Eastern side of the Iron Curtain is difficult to ascertain, yet the decisive role of Eastern European peoples in ending the Cold War illustrates the significance of the grassroots level for the transformation of East–West relations. As an elected politician, Brandt stood in the public limelight for most of his career but only during his years as chancellor did he come to enjoy the authority to decide on West German policy. Brandt was well aware that the highest function included both opportunities and constraints. Toplevel politicians are under constant public pressure to act from a position of strength and to enhance their nations’ influence; therefore lower-ranking officials are usually be er suited to negotiate compromises behind the scenes. Conversely, the top leaders may contribute decisively to the beginning of reconciliation processes by ending aggression through peace agreements with their opposite numbers and by launching novel policies aiming to transform long-standing enmities. Moreover, beyond their ability to set a new tone in international relations, in the later stages of a reconciliation process the top leaders may be instrumental to securing domestic support for agreements negotiated at lower levels. The Eastern Treaties did qualify as peace treaties ending long-standing hostilities and to some extent provided an impetus for a slow process of transformation. Brandt’s high-profile summits with the Eastern leaders created time and space for former opponents to address their conflict-ridden past and to envisage the possibility of a future ‘we’. From the reconciliation viewpoint it ma ers li le if the first face-to-face meeting leads to the airing of disagreements and differing views on the shared past – as long as both sides agree that it is the same past they are talking about. For example, when Brandt and Leonid Brezhnev met for the first time in August 1970, the Soviet leader’s emotional stories about the Second World War were not well received by the German guest; Brandt’s own references to the millionfold slaughter on the Eastern front remained particularly vague and unspecific. Nevertheless, their somewhat stilted first conversation on the Nazi era eventually contributed to dispelling mutual mistrust and led to the topic being integrated into later discussions, also between Brezhnev and the former Wehrmacht officer Helmut Schmidt.1 Whereas Brandt excelled abroad in projecting the image of a new Germany, he performed less convincingly in securing domestic support for the agreements prepared by his negotiators. He almost failed to secure the indispensable support of the Bundestag and in 1972 barely achieved ratification of the Eastern Treaties. The significance of medium-level negotiators lies not only in reaching some form of agreement through laborious negotiation with the other side, but also in building a network of informal contacts and institutionalizing

198 | Reconciliation Road

perpetual exchange between former opponents. For Brandt’s Ostpolitik, a particularly relevant negotiator was Egon Bahr, who had continuously built up a network of secret East–West contacts since the early 1960s. As the decisive (albeit not official) negotiator of the groundbreaking Treaty of Moscow, Bahr spent much of the first half of 1970 in the corridors of the Kremlin, lobbying on Brandt’s behalf and trying to understand the unfamiliar and convoluted paths of Eastern decision-making. While the secrecy of Bahr’s mission was conducive to his reaching a consensus with the Soviet side, without which Brandt’s entire Ostpolitik would have collapsed, this very secrecy also exacerbated tensions with the political opposition in West Germany. In Brandt’s strategy of establishing permanent networks of contacts across the Iron Curtain, another crucial element was the development of economic relations. The resulting increase in East– West trade was not spectacular but nevertheless measurable and significant, both economically and politically. From a theoretical viewpoint the strengthening of (economic) interdependence is no guarantee of improved relations; and yet, if the goal is reconciliation, there seems to be no other way than to transform the relationship through personal contacts at all levels of society. Finally, Brandt’s government a empted to institutionalize and multilateralize West German Ostpolitik through the pan-European CSCE conferences in Helsinki and Geneva (1972–75). Brandt only came to fully appreciate the truly significant results of the CSCE in the mid1980s; nevertheless, his Ostpolitik deserves credit for having laid decisive groundwork for the Helsinki conference to actually take place. In addition to the theoretical framework on the contributions to reconciliation by different levels of society, the book has applied the concept of temporal progression from thin to thick reconciliation. Such a progression is by no means automatic, nor is its progress necessarily linear. The first and thinnest stage of reconciliation may be described as coexistence, with a primary focus on preventing war. Against the background of intensified Cold War antagonism, reducing the military threat and achieving coexistence were the main themes for Brandt until the mid-1960s. Coexistence entails dialogue between opponents to ensure common survival and thus represents a significant first step towards reconciliation. At the same time, coexistence tends to ignore conflict-laden differences in order not to jeopardize security and thus may be an obstacle to reconciliation and the resolution of conflicts. Significantly, from its early phases Brandt’s Ostpolitik included elements transcending the indifference of coexistence, not least because the (selfish) objective of German reunification seemed possible only through the gradual transformation of East–West relations. The second and thicker stage of reconciliation involves depolarization of the opposing sides and rehumanization of the demonized enemy.

Conclusion | 199

The projection of a future ‘we’ and the recognition of the other side’s demands may also be subsumed in this stage, which corresponds mainly to Brandt’s achievements as chancellor. As West German foreign minister in the late 1960s he had a empted to reach this stage, but his success was decidedly limited. Recognition may be both an indispensable step towards reconciliation and a stumbling block towards this end, as it emphasizes the difference between self and other that reconciliation aims to transform. In the late 1960s, essential Eastern demands included West German recognition of the postwar borders of Poland and Czechoslovakia and recognition of East Germany as a state. Brandt’s government met these demands, at the price of dissent at home and aloofness on the part of the East German regime following recognition. In Brandt’s public discourse (taking inspiration from Lyndon B. Johnson), the objective of reconciling Germans with former victims of Nazi aggression sometimes converged with the reconciliation of Cold War enemies in Eastern and Western Europe. Brandt never specified what such pan-European reconciliation would entail. The main characteristic of the third stage of reconciliation is the transformation of political and economic structures, accompanied by more positive outlooks on the former adversaries by the general public. During Brandt’s chancellorship domestic perceptions did indeed change and the West Germans developed more positive expectations regarding the East. Gradually replacing the image of ‘the snarling Bolshevik’, the potential of the Soviets as economic partners and friendly neighbours started to emerge.2 Brandt also envisaged an evolution of East–West structures but in the second half of his chancellorship had to acknowledge the limits imposed by the realities of the Cold War and by intransigent a itudes in East and West. Instead of heading towards the fourth and thickest stage of reconciliation – appreciation of mutual differences, atonement and forgiveness – by the late 1970s West Germany found itself back in a situation of Cold War hostility, where peaceful coexistence and the prevention of war (stage one) became the main objectives. As an elder statesman Brandt also experienced the dilemmas of pursuing reconciliation into the second generation, as in a changed environment the original framing of principles became controversial. Brandt had initiated Ostpolitik with the interlocutors available at the time, i.e. the political leaders of the Eastern European states. Honouring his agreements with these (authoritarian) leaders, in the 1980s Brandt refrained from supporting alternative forces, notably the emerging Solidarność movement fighting for human rights in Poland. With the unexpected end of the Cold War and a generational change, in the 1990s Germany and its Eastern neighbours seized the opportunity to pursue the thickest forms of reconciliation.

200 | Reconciliation Road

FIGURE 7.1. As Germany and Poland signed their Treaty of Good Neighbourliness on 17 June 1991, this cartoon looked back on 1970 and interpreted Brandt’s iconic Kniefall as the starting point of a long-term reconciliation process. Here, Brandt is kneeling like an athlete in the starting blocks, heading from a murky past towards a brighter future. © Ernst Maria Lang / Süddeutsche Zeitung (1991).

Brandt lived to see the beginning of this new phase of reconciliation initiatives. The Polish–German Treaty on Good Neighbourliness and Friendly Co-operation of June 1991 realized what Brandt had wished to achieve as far back as 1970 – a reconciliation treaty following the Franco-German model of 1963. It proclaimed Polish–German co-operation encompassing high politics and security, promoted institutionalized frameworks and economic partnership at the middle level and organized grassroots exchange, for example through the creation of the German–Polish Youth Association. In parallel, starting in 1989, cultural ties proliferated, German political foundations actively promoted reconciliation and democratization in Poland, and various governmental and non-governmental actors initiated joint efforts to come to terms with the past.3 Similar reconciliation initiatives were launched between Germany and Czechoslovakia, albeit without benefi ing from previously established networks as with Poland. The orthodox Czechoslovak regime had been particularly reluctant to develop close ties with West Germany until the end of the Cold War. Very similar to the 1991 treaty with Poland, in February 1992 Germany concluded friendship agreements with Czechoslovakia and Hun-

Conclusion | 201

gary.4 But the initial enthusiasm over transforming the former antagonism soon encountered serious obstacles, especially in relation to the Czechs and the Slovaks, who intensely debated their future relations with the big German neighbour. Much work remained to be done to come to terms with the Nazi era and Cold War prejudices remained to be confronted on all sides. In addition, the Germans tended to view post-Soviet Russia as a partner while most Eastern Europeans perceived it as a potential threat. Yet overall, a er the fall of the Iron Curtain, the international framework was no longer an obstacle to East–West reconciliation and negotiations in preparation for the European Union’s Eastern enlargement soon rose to the top of political agendas. Not only did the prospect of EU membership provide an institutionalized platform of exchange and partnership but it also promised to balance out the socioeconomic disparities between Germany and its smaller neighbours in the East, thereby favouring reconciliation. The ‘we’ was no longer a projection into the future but eventually became a reality.5 Looking back on the many denunciations and negative interpretations of Ostpolitik in Brandt’s time, most elements of criticism lost their substance with the end of the Cold War. The CDU reproach of the early 1970s that Ostpolitik only served to prolong the division of Germany instead of overcoming it became obsolete at the latest when German unity was achieved in October 1990. Brandt’s presence at the festivities as a guest of honour, at the invitation of Chancellor Helmut Kohl (CDU), was a tangible symbol of appreciation. Earlier US concerns and Henry Kissinger’s apprehension that Brandt’s policy might ‘wreck NATO’ did not come to pass and by the end of the Cold War, if anything, the Atlantic Alliance gained a new role as a framework for the Western integration of Eastern European states.6 Had Chancellor Brandt been too close to Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, as photos of their swimming together in the Black Sea seemed to suggest? When East German documents became available a er the collapse of the GDR, Brandt painted a somewhat disillusioned picture of the Soviet leadership and particularly of Brezhnev’s initial rejection of Ostpolitik as a cunning ploy of the class enemy. Brandt further noted: ‘Even in retrospect I do not want to deny that the then leader of the Kremlin cared about world peace in his way, but the documents show even more clearly than my own experience with how li le intelligence a giant empire can be governed in a “stagnating” way.’7 However, Brandt’s personal disillusion was accompanied by no regrets about his own policy. With the benefit of hindsight, contemporary claims that Chancellor Brandt made too many concessions to the East and thereby betrayed vital German interests seem hard to sustain. For instance, today there is a consensus that Brandt was correct in declaring in December 1970 that the Treaty of Warsaw ‘surren-

202 | Reconciliation Road

ders nothing that was not squandered long ago’ by the criminal Nazi regime, and that accepting the loss of formerly German territories to Poland was an unavoidable acknowledgement of reality.8 Whether or not Brandt’s Ostpolitik prolonged the life of the communist regimes in the East is difficult to ascertain. Soviet dissidents like Vladimir Bukovsky and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn openly criticized détente and Ostpolitik for legitimizing Moscow’s coercive rule and for consolidating the domestic stability of the Eastern camp. Today a minority of scholars advocate positions parallel to those of the mentioned dissidents while the majority of academics (and this book) hold that détente and Ostpolitik contributed to the gradual erosion of the legitimacy of the Eastern system.9 Directly related to these arguments is the philosophical question about the relationship between Brandt’s Ostpolitik and the end of the Cold War. To establish a linear causality from the first to the second seems far-fetched yet to dismiss any connection between the two would be equally implausible. One line of thought maintains that the web of contacts created by German Ostpolitik, the eastward extension of human rights norms through the Helsinki process and the European Community’s economic force of a raction were instrumental in explaining why the Cold War in Europe ended so peacefully and without violence (except in Romania).10 Former Eastern officials like Gyula Horn (Hungary), Jiří Dienstbier (Czechoslovakia) and Valentin Falin (Soviet Union), who were personally involved in the dramatic events of 1989–90, credited Brandt’s Ostpolitik with having prepared and inspired the Eastern political shi s at the end of the Cold War. Veteran diplomat Falin even concluded: ‘without Ostpolitik no Gorbachev!’11 Brandt’s own evaluation was more cautious. A few weeks a er the fall of the Berlin Wall he stated in an interview that ‘my endeavours in the sixties and early seventies certainly are related somehow to what has changed in Europe, but I did not invent Gorbachev, nor the insight of the two world powers to relieve themselves of the enormous armament pressure’.12 In December 1991 Brandt confirmed the decisive role of Gorbachev’s persona in ending the Cold War (including Gorbachev’s miscalculations) and pointed out the rise of the Eastern peoples and structural factors as further explanations, especially the unsustainability of the ‘emaciated political and economic system’ under communist auspices. These observations are also integral parts of academic explanations for the end of the Cold War.13 The name of Willy Brandt lives on in contemporary public discourse especially, but not solely, in Germany. In Warsaw, a commemorative plaque and small monument erected in Willy Brandt Square commemorate his Kniefall. Barcelona hosts another Willy Brandt Square, Stockholm a statue to Willy Brandt and Porto a bust of Willy Brandt, to commemorate his

Conclusion | 203

merits in support of Portuguese democracy. The year 2020 sees international visitors to Berlin travelling through the new ‘Willy Brandt Airport, Berlin Brandenburg’. Brandt’s achievements as a conciliator are periodically referred to in East Asia, in the context of Japan’s complex relations with its wartime enemies China and Korea.14 Kim Dae Jung, the president of South Korea from 1998 to 2003, took inspiration from Brandt’s Ostpolitik for his Sunshine Policy towards North Korea. A hundred years a er Brandt’s birth, in late 2013 international newspapers and leaders commemorated ‘one of the great European statesmen of the twentieth century’ (Heinz Fischer, Austria). The New York Times particularly applauded his ‘courage’ when falling to his knees in Warsaw and pointed out that ‘Our age is not rich in such solemn, iconic moments of conciliation or contrition’. Le Monde (Paris) had previously called Brandt ‘the conscience of Germany’. Henry Kissinger, who since the 1970s had relented somewhat in his view, summarized that ‘the great quality of Brandt was a combination of a prophetic vision and the ability to translate it into human experience’.15 More controversial than these ways of looking back on Brandt’s achievements, is the legacy of Ostpolitik as implemented by SPD politicians in the twenty-first century. Against the background of Russia’s aggressive policy towards Ukraine and annexation of Crimea in 2014, the close ties to Moscow of social democratic leaders (e.g. former chancellor Gerhard Schröder) led to debates on whether the SPD should be more outspoken in its denunciation of Russia’s violation of human rights and international law. At the same time, in its interpretation of Ostpolitik, the German grand coalition government played a useful role as mediator between the contending parties in Ukraine. A wider discussion, in Germany and abroad, relates to the question of whether it is justifiable to translate the cultural legacy of atonement into German reluctance to use armed force as a tool of foreign policy.16 German social democrats continue to publicly demonstrate their affinity with Brandt, for example the SPD candidate for the German chancellorship in 2017, Martin Schulz. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (SPD) in August 2019 declared that he perceived Willy Brandt as an inspiration and model of courage in the sense that Brandt had persevered in his Ostpolitik in the face of harsh criticism and achieved majority support only a er protracted struggles. Even the political parties at the right and le extremes of the German political spectrum – the AfD (Alternative for Germany) and Die Linke (The Le ) – have in recent campaigns referred to Willy Brandt when calling respectively for more domestic democracy and closer co-operation with Russia. In conservative circles Brandt evokes considerably less acclaim than his successor as chancellor, Helmut Schmidt, a less polarizing social democratic leader. Thus, in Germany Brandt re-

204 | Reconciliation Road

mains first and foremost an idol of social democracy, an Übervater (father figure) and Lichtgestalt (shining light) who reminds party members of the SPD’s golden era. Given the party’s declining popularity in recent years, the Bavarian newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung launched a debate on the reinvigoration of the SPD with the telling title ‘Where are the Willy Brandts of today?’. Overall, Brandt enjoys fairly high esteem among the German public. In a large-scale poll commissioned by the television channel ZDF in 2003, he was ranked fi h among the ‘greatest Germans’ of all times (with Konrad Adenauer in first place and the religious reformer Martin Luther second).17 Willy Brandt is remembered as a modernizer who transformed the (self-) image of the Germans, a political leader imparting hope across national boundaries and not least – a conciliator.

Notes 1. Brandt, My Life, 182, 187. Morina, Legacies of Stalingrad, 200–1. 2. A. Schildt, ‘Mending Fences: The Federal Republic of Germany and Eastern Europe’, in E. Mühle (ed.) Germany and the European East in the Twentieth Century (Oxford: Berg, 2003), 169. 3. Feldman, Policy of Reconciliation, 205–49. Daase et al., Apology, 51–86. 4. See the discussion of the three treaties by A.L. Phillips, ‘The Politics of Reconciliation: Germany in Central-East Europe’, German Politics 7(2) (1998), 64–85. 5. J.S. Kopstein, ‘The Politics of National Reconciliation: Memory and Institutions in GermanCzech Relations since 1989’, Nationalism & Ethnic Politics 3(2) (1997), 57–78. R. Freudenstein, ‘Poland, Germany and the EU’, International Affairs 74(1) (1998), 41–54. Feldman, Policy of Reconciliation, 265–309. 6. Meeting Kissinger-Luns, 13 April 1973, box 1,027, HAK Memcons, National security council files, Nixon Library, Yorba Linda (quote). 7. Brandt book manuscript ‘Europa’, Dra chapter ‘Kleine Schri e’ part I/2 (unpaged and undated, wri en in 1991 or 1992), box 98, B25, WBA. 8. Brandt speech on German television, live broadcast from Warsaw, 7 December 1970, in Brandt, People and Politics, 399–400. 9. V. Boukovsky, Jugement à Moscou: Un dissident dans les archives du Kremlin (Paris: Robert Laffont, 1995), 309–10. For further references on the minority opinion, see Kramer, ‘Soviet Bloc’, 788–854. For a list of recent references substantiating the majority opinion, see F. Romero, ‘Review’, in Fujii, H-Diplo Forum on CSCE (unpaged). In The Economic Diplomacy of Ostpolitik: Origins of NATO’s Energy Dilemma (New York: Berghahn Books, 2010), Werner Lippert presents yet another perspective, and argues that Ostpolitik and the Helsinki process shortened the life of communism in Eastern Europe but not in the Soviet Union. See also P. Merseburger, ‘Die Ostpolitik war erfolgrei ’, Die Neue Gesells a 39(5) (1992), 450–52. G.A. Craig, ‘Did Ostpolitik Work? The Path to German Reunification’, Foreign Affairs 73(1) (1994), 162–67. 10. V. Mastny, ‘Why Did the Cold War End Peacefully? The Importance of Europe’, Historically Speaking 9(1) (2007), 8–10. G. Lundestad, ‘The European Role at the Beginning and

Conclusion | 205

11.

12. 13.

14. 15.

16. 17.

Particularly the End of the Cold War’, in Njølstad, Last Decade, 60–79. J.W. Young, ‘Western Europe and the End of the Cold War, 1979-1989’, in Leffler and Westad, Cambridge History 3: 289–310. Garton Ash, In Europe’s Name, 119 (Falin quote). J. Dienstbier, Träumen von Europa (Berlin: Rowohlt, 1991), 117–25. G. Horn, Freiheit, die i meine: Erinnerungen des ungaris en Außenministers, der den Eisernen Vorhang öffnete (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 1991), 54–57. Brandt interview with Der Spiegel, 24 February 1992, Berliner Ausgabe 10: 521–22. Brandt interview with SonntagsBli , 26 November 1989, box 1,066, A3, WBA. Brandt statement, Nobel Symposium in Oslo, 6 December 1991, box 1,103, A3, WBA. For academic debates on the end of the Cold War, see for example Bozo et al., Europe and the End; Leffler and Westad, Cambridge History 3. ‘Japan needs a Willy Brandt’, The Japan Times, 24 September 2006. ‘A Time for Courage’, The New York Times, 21 November 2013. Fischer quote at h ps:// www.willy-brandt-biografie.de/quellen/zitate/zitate-ueber-willy-brandt/ (last accessed 30 March 2020). ‘Willy Brandt, la conscience de l’Allemagne’, Le Monde, 20 October 1992. Kissinger cited by S. Kieninger, ‘Fi y Years since Ostpolitik: How Willy Brandt’s Diplomacy Transformed Europe’, 21 October 2019, h ps://www.aicgs.org/2019/10/=fi yyears-since-ostpolitik-how-willy-brandts-diplomacy-transformed-europe/ (last accessed 30 March 2020). See for example ‘A Lurch onto the World Stage’, The Economist, 28 February 2015. ‘Berlin entde t Osteuropa’, Neue Zür er Zeitung, 22 August 2014. ‘Maas nennt SPD-Vorsitz eine Verlo ung’, Der Tagesspiegel, 15 August 2019. ‘Mehr Willy Brandt wagen’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 24 May 2013. N. Frei, ‘Annäherung dur Wandel: Neun Beoba tungen über Willy Brandt im Bli der Deuts en’, in Rother, Neue Fragen, 32. Ranking ‘Die 100 grössten Deuts en’, 2003, h p://www6. zdf-jahrbu .de/2003/programmarbeit/arens.htm (last accessed 30 Mar 2020). ‘Willy Brandt: Li tgestalt mit dunklen Seiten’, Der Spiegel, 21 October 2019. ‘Wo sind die Willy Brandts von heute?’, Süddeuts e Zeitung, 8 October 2017.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

( Archival Sources Archiv der sozialen Demokratie (AdsD), Friedrich-Ebert-Sti ung, Bonn, Germany Depositum Egon Bahr Depositum Horst Ehmke Depositum Helmut Schmidt Personalia

Archiv des Liberalismus, Friedrich-Naumann-Sti ung, Gummersbach, Germany A33, Walter Scheel A35, Walter Scheel N82, Walter S eel

Archiv für Christlich-Demokratische Politik (ACDP), KonradAdenauer-Sti ung, St. Augustin, Germany 226, Nachlass Kurt Georg Kiesinger 724, Nachlass Horst Osterheld

Archives du Ministère des Affaires Étrangères (AMAE), Paris, La Courneuve, France Archives orales Europe 1961–70 Europe 1971–76 Secrétariat général 1945–74

Bibliography | 207

Archives of Western European Union, Luxembourg Organs of Western European Union

Bundesarchiv (BArch), Koblenz, Germany B136, Bundeskanzleramt N397, Karl Theodor Freiherr von und zu Gu enberg N1474, Ulrich Sahm

Fondation Jean Monnet pour l’Europe, Lausanne, Switzerland AMK Fonds du Comité d’Action

Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, Austin, TX, United States National Security Files

National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD, United States Record Group 59

Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts (PA/AA), Berlin, Germany B1, Ministerbüro B2, Büro Staatssekretäre B9, Planungsstab B12, Ostabteilung B38, Berlin und Deutschland als Ganzes B41, Sowjetunion B42, Osteuropa B43, Abrüstung und Sicherheit B130, Offengelegte VS-Akten B150, Dokumente für die Edition AAPD

Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, Yorba Linda, CA, United States National Security Files

The National Archives, Kew, United Kingdom FCO 33, Western European Department PREM, Records of the Prime Minister’s Office

208 | Bibliography

Willy-Brandt-Archiv (WBA) im Archiv der sozialen Demokratie, Friedrich-Ebert-Sti ung, Bonn, Germany A1, Persönli e Unterlagen A3, Publizistis e Äußerungen A6, Berlin 1947–66 A7, Außenminister 1966–69 A8, Bundeskanzler 1969–74 A10, Abgeordnetentätigkeit A11, Sozialdemokratis e Partei Deuts A13, Sozialistis e Internationale A19, Reisen und Veranstaltungen B25, Bu projekt Europa D32, Post mortem Zugänge

lands 1964–87

Published Primary Sources Allardt, H. Moskauer Tagebu : Beoba tungen, Notizen, Erlebnisse. Düsseldorf: Econ, 1980. Andrew, C., and V. Mitrokhin. The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West. London: Penguin, 1999. Archiv der Gegenwart, CD-Rom. Sankt Augustin: Siegler, 2000. Bahr, E. ‘Sicherheit durch Annäherung: Eine europäische Si erheitsgemeins a in Zentraleuropa’. Die Zeit, 29 June 1990. ———. Sicherheit für und vor Deutschland: Vom Wandel durch Annäherung zur Europäischen Sicherheitsgemeinscha . Munich: Hanser, 1991. ———. Ostwärts und ni ts vergessen! Kooperation sta Konfrontation. Hamburg: VSA: Verlag, 2012. Bone, A.G. (ed.). Man’s Peril, 1954-55: The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell (Volume 28). London: Routledge, 2003. Brandt, W. The Ordeal of Coexistence: The Gustav Pollak Lectures at Harvard University 1962. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963. ———. ‘German Policy toward the East’. Foreign Affairs 46(3) (1968), 476–86. ———. Friedenspolitik in Europa. Frankfurt: Fis er, 1968. ———. Der Wille zum Frieden: Perspektiven der Politik. Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 1971. ———. Auf der Zinne der Partei: Parteitagsreden 1960 bis 1983. Berlin: Dietz, 1984. ———. Verbre er und andere Deuts e: Ein Beri t aus Deuts land 1946. Bonn: Dietz, 2007 (first published in 1946 as Forbrytere og andre tyskere). Bundesar iv (ed.). Dokumente zur Deuts landpolitik (DzD). Frankfurt: Metzner, 1961–87, and Muni : Oldenbourg, 2002–2015. De Gaulle, C. Discours et messages. Paris: Plon, 1970. Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS). Washington: Government Printing Office, 1994–2015.

Bibliography | 209

Galkin, A., and A. Tschernjajew (eds). Mi ail Gorbats ow und die deuts e Frage: Sowjetis e Dokumente 1986–1991. Munich: Oldenbourg, 2011. Gorbachev, M. Perestroika: New Thinking for our Country and the World. London: William Collins, 1987. Grebing, H., G. Schöllgen and H.A. Winkler (eds). Willy Brandt: Berliner Ausgabe. Bonn: Dietz, 2000–9. Hahn, W.F. ‘West Germany’s Ostpolitik: The Grand Design of Egon Bahr’. Orbis: A Journal of World Affairs 16(4) (1973), 859–80. Khrushchev, N.S. ‘On Peaceful Coexistence’. Foreign Affairs 38(1) (1959), 1–18. Noelle, E., and E.P. Neumann (eds). Jahrbu der öffentli en Meinung 1968–1973. Allensba : Verlag für Demoskopie, 1974. Noelle-Neumann, E. (ed.). Allensbacher Jahrbuch der Demoskopie 1974–1976. Vienna: Fritz Molden, 1976. Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung. Bulletin der Bundesregierung. Bonn, 1955–92. Pressemi eilungen der SPD 1958–1998, www.fes.de/bibliothek. Scheel, W. Reden und Interviews. Bonn: Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung, 1972–74. Schmidt, H., and E. Bahr. Die Erinnerung an Willy Brandt und ein Rückblick auf die gemeinsame Zeit. Berlin: Bundeskanzler-Willy-Brandt-Sti ung, 2009. Schwarz, H.P. (ed.). Akten zur Auswärtigen Politik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (AAPD). Munich: Oldenbourg, 1997–2005. Sozial-Demokratischer Pressedienst 1946–1995, www.fes.de/bibliothek.

Interviews Osmo Apunen, 10 January 2017, Kämmenniemi Egon Bahr, 5 May 2009 and 14 April 2004, Berlin Peter Brandt, 3 December 2011, Hagen Hermann Kusterer, 15 November 2010, Bonn Bruno de Leusse de Syon, 21 July 2004, Nernier Correspondence: Krzysztof Gawęda, October 2019

Memoirs Arbatov, G. The System: An Insider’s Life in Soviet Politics. New York: Random House, 1993. Bahr, E. Zu meiner Zeit. Munich: Blessing, 1996. Boukovsky, V. Jugement à Moscou: Un dissident dans les archives du Kremlin. Paris: Robert Laffont, 1995. Brandt, L. Andenken. Munich: Hanser, 2006.

210 | Bibliography

Brandt, P. Mit anderen Augen: Versuch über den Politiker und Privatmann Willy Brandt. Bonn: Dietz, 2013. Brandt, R. Freundesland: Erinnerungen. Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 1992. Brandt, W. Begegnungen und Einsi ten: Die Jahre 1960–1975. Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 1976. ———. People and Politics: The Years 1960–1975. London: Collins, 1978. ———. Erinnerungen. Frankfurt: Propyläen, 1989. ———. My Life in Politics. London: Penguin, 1993. Debré, M. Mémoires. Paris: Albin Michel, 1993. Dienstbier, J. Träumen von Europa. Berlin: Rowohlt, 1991. Ehmke, H. Mi endrin: Von der Großen Koalition zur Deuts en Einheit. Berlin: Rowohlt, 1994. Falin, V. Politis e Erinnerungen. Muni : Droemer Knaur, 1993. Horn, G. Freiheit, die i meine: Erinnerungen des ungaris en Außenministers, der den Eisernen Vorhang öffnete. Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 1991. Kissinger, H. The White House Years. Boston: Li le, Brown, 1979. Kreisky, B. Zwis en den Zeiten: Erinnerungen aus fünf Jahrzehnten. Berlin: Siedler, 1986. O’Donnell, K.P., and D.F Powers. ‘Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye’: Memories of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Boston: Li le Brown, 1972. Reagan, R. An American Life. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990. S midt, H. Die Deuts en und ihre Na barn: Mens en und Mä te II. Berlin: Siedler, 1990. Wałęsa, L. A Way of Hope. New York: Henry Holt, 1987.

Secondary Sources Ackermann, A. ‘Reconciliation as a Peace-Building Process in Postwar Europe: The Franco-German Case’. Peace & Change 19(3) (1994), 229–50. Andrychowicz, J., K. Konarek, B. Sendhardt and A. Traczyk (eds). Europa Kontinent der Versöhnung? 40 Jahre na dem Besu Willy Brandts in Wars au. Warsaw: Friedri -Ebert-Sti ung, 2012. Arendt, H. The Origins of Totalitarianism. Cleveland: Meridian, 1962. ———. ‘On Humanity in Dark Times: Thoughts about Lessing’, Address on accepting the Lessing Prize of the Free City of Hamburg, 28 September 1959, in H. Arendt, Men in Dark Times (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1968), 3–32. ———. ‘Collective Responsibility’ (first published 1968), in J.W. Bernauer (ed.), Amor Mundi: Explorations in the Faith and Thought of Hannah Arendt (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1987), 43–50. ———. ‘Truth and Politics’, in H. Arendt, Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought (New York: Viking Press, 1987), 227–64. ———. The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. ———. Ei mann in Jerusalem: Ein Beri t von der Banalität des Bösen. Munich: Piper, 1999.

Bibliography | 211

Assmann, A. ‘Ein deutsches Trauma? Die Kollektivschuldthese zwischen Erinnern und Vergessen’, Merkur 53 (1999), 1,142–54. Badalassi, N. En finir avec la guerre froide: La France, l’Europe et le processus d’Helsinki, 1965–1975. Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2014. ———. ‘“Neither Too Much nor Too Li le”: France, the USSR and the Helsinki CSCE’. Cold War History 18(1) (2018), 1–17. Baev, J. ‘The Establishment of Bulgarian-West German Diplomatic Relations within the Coordinating Framework of the Warsaw Pact’. Journal of Cold War Studies 18(3) (2016), 158–80. Bange, O. ‘Onto the Slippery Slope: East Germany and East-West Détente under Ulbricht and Honecker’. Journal of Cold War Studies 18(3) (2016), 60–94. Bange, O., and G. Niedhart (eds). Helsinki 1975 and the Transformation of Europe. New York: Berghahn Books, 2008. Baring, A. Machtwechsel: Die Ära Brandt-Scheel. Stu gart: Deutsche VerlagsAnstalt, 1982. Bazin, A. ‘Les acteurs publics de la réconciliation en Europe depuis la fin de la Seconde Guerre mondiale’. Les Cahiers Sirice no. 15 (2016), 41–51. Bégin, N. ‘Kontakte zwis en Gewerks a en in Ost und West: Die Auswirkungen von Solidarność in Deuts land und Frankrei . Ein Verglei ’. Ar iv für Sozialges i te 45 (2005), 293–324. Behrens, A. ‘Dur e Brandt knien?’ Der Kniefall in Wars au und der deuts -polnis e Vertrag. Bonn: Dietz, 2010. Békés, C. ‘Hungary, the Soviet Bloc, the German Question, and the CSCE Process, 1965–1975’. Journal of Cold War Studies 18(3) (2016), 95–138. Bender, P. Die ‘Neue Ostpolitik’ und ihre Folgen: Vom Mauerbau bis zur Vereinigung. Muni : Deuts er Tas enbu Verlag, 1996 (first published 1986). Bernardini, G. Nuova Germania, anti i timori: Stati Uniti, Ostpolitik e sicurezza europea. Bologna: Il Mulino, 2014. Best, A., J.M. Hanhimäki, J.A. Maiolo and K.E. S ulze. International History of the Twentieth Century and Beyond. London: Routledge, 2008. Biggar, N. Burying the Past: Making Peace and Doing Justice a er Civil Conflict. Washington: Georgetown University Press, 2003. Bingen, D. ‘Die Deutschland- und Ostpolitik Willy Brandts im Spiegel der polnischen Publizistik 1966–1974’, in C. Tessmer (ed.), Das Willy-Brandt-Bild in Deutschland und Polen (Berlin: Bundeskanzler-Willy-Brandt-Sti ung, 2000), 95–110. ———. ‘Der lange Weg der “Normalisierung”: Die Entwicklung der Beziehungen zwischen der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und Polen 1949–1990’, in W.D. Eberwein and B. Kerski (eds), Die deutsch-polnischen Beziehungen 1949–2000: Eine Werte- oder Interessengemeinscha ? (Opladen: Leske + Budrich, 2001), 35–59. ———. ‘Ostpolitik und demokratischer Wandel in Mi el- und Osteuropa: der Testfall Polen’. Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 45 (2005), 117–40. ———. ‘Ökonomie der Werte in den westdeuts -polnis en Beziehungen zwis en den 1950er und 1970er Jahren’, in D. Bingen, P.O. Loew and N. Wolf

212 | Bibliography

(eds), Interesse und Konflikt: Zur politis en Ökonomie der deuts -polnis en Beziehungen, 1900–2007 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2008), 310–27. Bis of, G., S. Karner and P. Ruggenthaler (eds). The Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Lanham: Lexington, 2010. Bluth, C. ‘The Origins of MBFR: West German Policy Priorities and Conventional Arms Control’. War in History 7(2) (2000), 199–224. Boll, F., and K. Ru niewicz (eds). ‘Nie mehr eine Politik über Polen hinweg’: Willy Brandt und Polen. Bonn: Dietz, 2010. Boll, F., W. Wyso i and K. Ziemer (eds). Versöhnung und Politik: Polnis -deuts e Versöhnungsinitiativen der 1960er Jahre und die Entspannungspolitik. Bonn: Dietz, 2009. Boulding, K.E. Stable Peace. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1978. Bozo, F., M.P. Rey, N.P. Ludlow and L. Nuti (eds). Europe and the End of the Cold War: A Reappraisal. London: Routledge, 2008. Bozo, F., N.P. Ludlow and M.P. Rey (eds). Visions of the End of the Cold War in Europe, 1945–1990. New York: Berghahn Books, 2012. Bresselau von Bressensdorf, A. Frieden dur Kommunikation: Das System Gens er und die Entspannungspolitik im Zweiten Kalten Krieg 1979–1982/83. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015. Brown, A. ‘Perestroika and the End of the Cold War’. Cold War History 7(1) (2007), 1–17. Bruns, W. ‘Der Grundlagenvertrag ist 10 Jahre in Kra ’. Die Neue Gesellscha 30(1) (1983), 66–70. Buruma, I. The Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany and Japan. London: Phoenix, 2002. Camarade, H. ‘Le passé national-socialiste dans la société ouest-allemande entre 1958 et 1968: Modalités d’un changement de paradigme mémoriel’. Vingtième siècle: Revue d’histoire no. 110 (2011), 83–95. Charbonneau, B., and G. Parent (eds). Peacebuilding, Memory and Reconciliation: Bridging Top-Down and Bo om-Up Approaches. London: Routledge, 2012. Charbonneau, B., and G. Parent. ‘Introduction: Peacebuilding, Healing, Reconciliation’, in B. Charbonneau and G. Parent (eds), Peacebuilding, Memory and Reconciliation: Bridging Top-Down and Bo om-Up Approaches (London: Routledge, 2012), 1–16. Collins, R.M. Transforming America: Politics and Culture in the Reagan Years. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. Cortright, D. Peace: A History of Movements and Ideas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Craig, G.A. ‘Did Ostpolitik Work? The Path to German Reunification’. Foreign Affairs 73(1) (1994), 162–67. Crocker, D.A. ‘Reckoning with Past Wrongs: A Normative Framework’. Ethics & International Affairs 13(1) (1999), 43–64. Czerkawski, K. ‘The Indebtedness of Socialist Countries to the West’. Eastern European Economics 21(1) (1982), 77–90. Daase, C., S. Engert, M.A. Horelt, J. Renner and R. Strassner (eds). Apology and Reconciliation in International Relations: The Importance of Being Sorry. London: Routledge, 2016.

Bibliography | 213

Dannenberg, J. von. The Foundations of Ostpolitik: The Making of the Moscow Treaty between West Germany and the USSR. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Defrance, C. ‘La réconciliation après les conflits: un savoir-faire européen? Éléments d’introduction’. Les Cahiers Sirice no. 15 (2016), 5–14. Defrance, C., and U. Pfeil (eds). Verständigung und Versöhnung na dem ‘Zivilisationsbru ’? Deutschland in Europa nach 1945. Brussels: Peter Lang, 2016. Dinan, D. Europe Recast: A History of European Union. Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2004. Dodds, G.D. ‘Governmental Apologies and Political Reconciliation: Promise and Pitfalls’, in B. Charbonneau and G. Parent (eds), Peacebuilding, Memory and Reconciliation: Bridging Top-Down and Bo om-Up Approaches (London: Routledge, 2012), 130–45. Doyle, M.W. Liberal Peace: Selected Essays. London: Routledge, 2012. Duchêne, F. Jean Monnet: The First Statesman of Interdependence. New York: Norton, 1994. Dürr, T. Hannah Arendts Begriff des Verzeihens. Freiburg: Karl Alber, 2014. Eibl, F. Politik der Bewegung: Gerhard Schröder als Außenminister 1961-1966. Munich: Oldenbourg, 2001. Erhard, V. ‘Die Schollwer-Papiere von 1962 und 1967: Meilensteine auf dem Weg der FDP zur Neuen Deutschland- und Ostpolitik’, in R. Hübsch and J. Frölich (eds), Deutsch-deutscher Liberalismus im Kalten Krieg: Zur Deutschlandpolitik der Liberalen 1945–1970 (Potsdam: Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg, 1997), 237–51. ———. Adenauers deuts landpolitis e Geheimkonzepte während der zweiten BerlinKrise 1958-1962. Hamburg: Kovac, 2003. Fanon, F. Toward the African Revolution. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1967. Feldman, L.G. Germany’s Foreign Policy of Reconciliation: From Enmity to Amity. Lanham: Rowman & Li lefield, 2012. Filitov, A.M. ‘The USSR and FRG’s “New Ostpolitik”’. MGIMO Review of International Relations 54(3) (2017), 123–40 (in Russian). Fink, C., and B. Schaefer (eds). Ostpolitik and the World, 1969-1974. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Fischer, B. ‘US Foreign Policy under Reagan and Bush’, in M.P. Leffler and O.A. Westad (eds), The Cambridge History of the Cold War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010) 3: 267–88. Fischer, F. ‘Einleitung’, in H. Grebing, G. Schöllgen and H.A. Winkler (eds), Willy Brandt: Berliner Ausgabe (Bonn: Dietz, 2003), 9: 15–77. ———. ‘Einleitung’, in H. Grebing, G. Schöllgen and H.A. Winkler (eds), Willy Brandt: Berliner Ausgabe (Bonn: Dietz, 2005) 6: 15–92. Fischer, T. ‘“A Mustard Seed Grew into a Bushy Tree”: The Finnish CSCE Initiative of 5 May 1969’. Cold War History 9(2) (2009), 177–201. Forsberg, T. ‘Economic Incentives, Ideas, and the End of the Cold War’. Journal of Cold War Studies 7(2) (2005), 142–64. Forst, R. Toleration in Conflict: Past and Present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Frei, N. Adenauer’s Germany and the Nazi Past: The Politics of Amnesty and Integration. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002.

214 | Bibliography

———. ‘Annäherung dur Wandel: Neun Beoba tungen über Willy Brandt im Bli der Deuts en’, in B. Rother (ed.), Willy Brandt: Neue Fragen, Neue Erkenntnisse (Bonn: Dietz, 2011), 25–33. Freudenstein, R. ‘Poland, Germany and the EU’. International Affairs 74(1) (1998), 41–54. Fujii, G. (ed.). H-Diplo Forum on ‘CSCE, the German Question, and the Eastern Bloc’. 1 June 2017. Retrieved November 2017 from h p://tiny.cc/AR701. Gaddis, J.L. ‘The Long Peace: Elements of Stability in the Postwar International System’. International Security 10(4) (1986), 99–142. Galeo i, M. Afghanistan: The Soviet Union’s Last War. London: Routledge, 2012 (first published 1995). Galtung, J. ‘An Editorial’. Journal of Peace Resear 1(1) (1964), 1–4. Garton Ash, T. Im Namen Europas: Deuts land und der geteilte Kontinent. Munich: Hanser, 1993. ———. In Europe’s Name: Germany and the Divided Continent. London: Vintage, 1994. Gassert, P. Kurt Georg Kiesinger 1904–1988: Kanzler zwis en den Zeiten. Muni : Deuts e Verlags-Anstalt, 2006. Gassert, P., and A.E. Steinweis (eds). Coping with the Nazi Past: West German Debates on Nazism and Generational Conflict, 1955–1975. New York: Berghahn Books, 2006. Geppert, D. ‘Großbritannien und die Neue Ostpolitik der Bundesrepublik’. Vierteljahrshe e für Zeitges i te 57(3) (2009), 385–412. Goethe, J.W. von. Wilhelm Meister’s Journeyman Years, in J.W. von Goethe, Goethe’s Works, Illustrated by the Best German Artists (Philadelphia: G. Barrie, 1885), 5: 1–228. Götz, A. Bilanz der Verfolgung von NS-Stra aten. Cologne: Bundesanzeiger, 1986. Grass, G. My Century. London: Faber, 1999. Gray, W.G. ‘Abstinence and Ostpolitik: Brandt’s Government and the Nuclear Question’, in C. Fink and B. Schaefer (eds), Ostpolitik and the World, 1969–1974 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 244–68. ———. ‘Paradoxes of Ostpolitik: Revisiting the Moscow and Warsaw Treaties, 1970’. Central European History 49(3–4) (2016), 409–40. Grebing, H. Willy Brandt: der andere Deutsche. Munich: Fink, 2008. Groh, D., and P. Brandt. ‘Vaterlandslose Gesellen’: Sozialdemokratie und Nation 1860–1990. Munich: Beck, 1992. Gross, S. ‘The German Economy and East-Central Europe’. German Politics and Society 31(3) (2013), 83–105. Ha endorn, H. Coming of Age: German Foreign Policy since 1945. Lanham: Rowman & Li lefield, 2006. Hajnicz, A. Polens Wende und Deuts lands Vereinigung: Die Öffnung zur Normalität 1989–1992. Paderborn: Schöningh, 1995. Hakkarainen, P. A State of Peace in Europe: West Germany and the CSCE, 1966–1975. New York: Berghahn Books, 2011. Hanhimäki, J.M. The Flawed Architect: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Bibliography | 215

———. ‘Conservative Goals, Revolutionary Outcomes: The Paradox of Détente’. Cold War History 8(4) (2008), 503–12. ———. The Rise and Fall of Détente: American Foreign Policy and the Transformation of the Cold War. Washington: Potomac Books, 2013. Hanhimäki, J.M., B. Schoenborn and B. Zanche a. Transatlantic Relations since 1945: An Introduction. London: Routledge, 2012. Harrison, H.M. ‘Berlin and the Cold War Struggle over Germany’, in A.M. Kalinovsky and C. Daigle (eds), The Routledge Handbook of the Cold War (London: Routledge, 2014), 56–72. He, Y. The Search for Reconciliation: Sino-Japanese and German-Polish Relations since World War II. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Heimann, S. ‘Einleitung’, in H. Grebing, G. S öllgen and H.A. Winkler (eds), Willy Brandt: Berliner Ausgabe (Bonn: Dietz, 2004), 3: 15–83. Heinlein, S.A. Gemeinsame Sicherheit: Egon Bahrs sicherheitspolitische Konzeption und die Kontinuität sozialdemokratischer Entspannungsvorstellungen. Münster: Waxmann, 1993. Hein-Mooren, K.D. ‘Spontan oder geplant? Bemerkungen zu Willy Brandts Kniefall in Warschau’. Geschichte in Wissenscha und Unterricht 55(12) (2004), 744–53. Heo, S.E. Reconciling Enemy States in Europe and Asia. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2012. Herf, J. Divided Memory: The Nazi Past in the Two Germanys. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997. Hiepel, C. ‘Europakonzeptionen und Europapolitik’, in B. Rother (ed.), Willy Brandts Außenpolitik (Wiesbaden: Springer, 2014), 21–91. Hofmann, A. The Emergence of Détente in Europe: Brandt, Kennedy and the Formation of Ostpolitik. London: Routledge, 2007. Hofmann, G. Polen und Deutsche: Der Weg zur europäischen Revolution 1989/90. Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2011. ———. Willy Brandt und Helmut S midt: Ges i te einer s wierigen Freunds a . Muni : Be , 2012. Hübs , R., and J. Fröli (eds). Deuts -deuts er Liberalismus im Kalten Krieg: Zur Deuts landpolitik der Liberalen 1945–1970. Potsdam: Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg, 1997. Ikeda, D. A Global Ethic of Coexistence: Toward a ‘Life-Sized’ Paradigm for Our Age. Peace Proposal Presented to the United Nations. Tokyo: Soka Gakkai, 2003. Jarausch, K.H. ‘Critical Memory and Civil Society: The Impact of the 1960s on German Debates about the Past’, in P. Gassert and A.E. Steinweis (eds), Coping with the Nazi Past: West German Debates on Nazism and Generational Conflict, 1955–1975 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2006), 11–30. Jarząbek, W. ‘“Ulbri t-Doktrin” oder “Gomulka-Doktrin”? Das Bemühen der Volksrepublik Polen um eine ges lossene Politik des kommunistis en Blo s gegenüber der westdeuts en Ostpolitik 1966/67’. Zeits ri für Ostmi eleuropa-Fors ung 55(1) (2006), 79–115. ———. ‘Deuts e (Neue) Ostpolitik aus polnis er Perspektive, 1966–1972’, in F. Boll and K. Ru niewicz (eds), ‘Nie mehr eine Politik über Polen hinweg’: Willy Brandt und Polen (Bonn: Dietz, 2010), 70–96.

216 | Bibliography

Jaspers, K. Die S uldfrage. Heidelberg: Lambert S neider, 1946. ———. The Question of German Guilt. New York: Fordham University Press, 2000. Jenkins, R. Peacebuilding: From Concept to Commission. London: Routledge, 2013. Judt, T. Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945. New York: Penguin Press, 2005. Juneau, J.F. ‘The Limits of Linkage: The Nixon Administration and Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik, 1969–72’. The International History Review 33(2) (2011), 277–97. Junker, D. (ed.). The United States and Germany in the Era of the Cold War, 1945– 1990. Washington: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Kansikas, S. ‘Acknowledging Economic Realities: The CMEA Policy Change vis-à-vis the European Community, 1970–3’. European Review of History 21(2) (2014), 311–28. Ke enacker, L. Germany 1989: In the A ermath of the Cold War. Harlow: Pearson, 2009. Kielmansegg, P.G. Na der Katastrophe: Eine Ges i te des geteilten Deuts land. Berlin: Siedler, 2000. Kieninger, S. ‘Fi y Years since Ostpolitik: How Willy Brandt’s Diplomacy Transformed Europe’. 21 October 2019. Retrieved November 2019 from h ps:// www.aicgs.org/2019/10/fi y-years-since-ostpolitik-how-willy-brandtsdiplomacy-transformed-europe/. Kopstein, J.S. ‘The Politics of National Reconciliation: Memory and Institutions in German-Czech Relations since 1989’. Nationalism & Ethnic Politics 3(2) (1997), 57–78. Kotkin, S. Uncivil Society: 1989 and the Implosion of the Communist Establishment. New York: Modern Library, 2009. Kramer, M. ‘The Demise of the Soviet Bloc’. The Journal of Modern History 83(4) (2011), 788–854. ———. ‘Editor’s Note’. Journal of Cold War Studies 18(3) (2016), 1–2. Krzemiński, A. ‘Der Kniefall’, in E. François and H. S ulze (eds), Deuts e Erinnerungsorte: Eine Auswahl (Muni : Be , 2005), 431–46. ———. ‘Kniefall im Namen des Friedens’, in J. Andry owicz, K. Konarek, B. Sendhardt and A. Traczyk (eds), Europa Kontinent der Versöhnung? 40 Jahre na dem Besu Willy Brandts in Wars au (Warsaw: Friedri -Ebert-Sti ung, 2012), 23–28. Kunter, K. Die Kir en im KSZE-Prozess 1968–1978. Stu gart: Kohlhammer, 2000. Kupchan, C.A. How Enemies Become Friends: The Sources of Stable Peace. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012. Lederach, J.P. Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies. Washington: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2010 (first published 1997). Leffler, M.P., and O.A. Westad (eds). The Cambridge History of the Cold War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Leide, H. NS-Verbre er und Staatssi erheit: Die geheime Vergangenheitspolitik der DDR. Gö ingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2005. Lerner, M. ‘“Trying to Find the Guy Who Invited Them”: Lyndon Johnson, Bridge Building, and the End of the Prague Spring’. Diplomatic History 32(1) (2008), 77–103.

Bibliography | 217

Lerner, W. ‘The Historical Origins of the Soviet Doctrine of Peaceful Coexistence’. Law and Contemporary Problems 29(4) (1964), 865–70. Li, D., and Y. Xia. Mao and the Sino-Soviet Split, 1959–1973: A New History. Lanham: Lexington, 2018. Lind, J. Sorry States: Apologies in International Politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008. ———. ‘The Perils of Apology: What Japan Shouldn’t Learn from Germany’, Foreign Affairs 88(3) (2009), 132–46. Link, W. ‘Die Entstehung des Moskauer Vertrages im Li te neuer Ar ivalien’. Vierteljahrshe e für Zeitgeschichte 49(2) (2001), 295–315. Lippert, W. The Economic Diplomacy of Ostpolitik: Origins of NATO’s Energy Dilemma. New York: Berghahn Books, 2010. Li le, G. The Public Emotions: From Mourning to Hope. Sydney: ABC Books, 2001. Locke, J. A Le er Concerning Toleration. Indianapolis: Hacke Publishing Company, 1983. ———. ‘The First Dra : An Essay Concerning Toleration’, in J.R. Milton and P. Milton (eds), John Locke: An Essay Concerning Toleration and other Writings on Law and Politics 1667–1683 (Oxford: Clarendon, 2006), 303–7. Lorenz, E. ‘“Der Traum von Europas Vereinigten Staaten” – Europavorstellungen des jungen Willy Brandt 1940–1946’, in A. Wilkens (ed.), Wir sind auf dem ri tigen Weg: Willy Brandt und die europäis e Einigung (Bonn: Dietz, 2010), 39–52. ———. Willy Brandt: Deuts er – Europäer – Weltbürger. Stu gart: Kohlhammer, 2012. Loth, W. Overcoming the Cold War: A History of Détente, 1950–1991. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002. ———. ‘Mikhail Gorbachev, Willy Brandt, and European Security’. Journal of European Integration History 11(1) (2005), 45–59. ———. ‘The Road to Vienna: West German and European Security from 1969 to 1973’, in W. Loth and G.H. Soutou (eds), The Making of Détente: Eastern and Western Europe in the Cold War, 1965–1975 (London: Routledge, 2008), 153–67. ———. ‘Abs ied vom Nationalstaat? Willy Brandt und die europäis e Einigung’, in B. Rother (ed.), Willy Brandt: Neue Fragen, Neue Erkenntnisse (Bonn: Dietz, 2011), 114–34. ———. Building Europe: A History of European Unification. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015. Loth, W., and B.A. Rusinek. ‘Einleitung’, in W. Loth and B.A. Rusinek (eds), Verwandlungspolitik: NS-Eliten in der westdeuts en Na kriegsgesells a (Frankfurt: Campus, 1998), 7–10. Loth, W., and G.H. Soutou (eds). The Making of Détente: Eastern and Western Europe in the Cold War, 1965–1975. London: Routledge, 2008. Ludlow, N.P. (ed.). European Integration and the Cold War: Ostpolitik – Westpolitik, 1965–1973. London: Routledge, 2007. Lundestad, G. ‘Empire by Invitation? The United States and Western Europe, 1945–1952’. Journal of Peace Research 23(3) (1986), 263–77. ———. ‘Empire’ by Integration: The United States and European Integration, 1945– 1997. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.

218 | Bibliography

———. ‘“Imperial Overstretch”, Mikhail Gorbachev, and the End of the Cold War’. Cold War History 1(1) (2000), 1–20. ———. ‘The European Role at the Beginning and Particularly the End of the Cold War’, in O. Njølstad (ed.), The Last Decade of the Cold War: From Conflict Escalation to Conflict Transformation (London: Frank Cass: 2004), 60–79. ———. The United States and Western Europe since 1945. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Maier, C.S. ‘Zu einer politis en Typologie der Aussöhnung’. Transit: Europäische Revue no. 18 (1999-2000), 102–17. Manchanda, A. ‘When Truth is Stranger than Fiction: The Able Archer Incident’. Cold War History 9(1) (2009), 111–33. Marshall, B. Willy Brandt: A Political Biography. Houndmills: Macmillan, 1997. ———. The New Germany and Migration in Europe. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000. Mastny, V. ‘Why Did the Cold War End Peacefully? The Importance of Europe’. Historically Speaking 9(1) (2007), 8–10. Mazover, M. Hitler’s Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe. New York: Penguin, 2008. Melissen, J. ‘Pre-Summit Diplomacy: Britain, the United States and the Nassau Conference, December 1962’. Diplomacy & Statecra , 7(3) (1996), 652–87. Merseburger, P. ‘Die Ostpolitik war erfolgreich’. Die Neue Gesellscha 39(5) (1992), 450–52. ———. Willy Brandt 1913–1992: Visionär und Realist. Stu gart: Deutsche VerlagsAnstalt, 2002. Meyer, K. ‘Wiedergutmachung nach 1945: Politik, Praxis und sozialdemokratisches Engagement’, Polis: Analysen, Meinungen, Deba en 56 (2014), 61–85. ———. Die SPD und die NS-Vergangenheit 1945–1990. Gö ingen: Wallstein, 2015. ———. ‘Mehr “Mut zur Wahrheit” wagen? Willy Brandt, die Deuts en und die NS-Vergangenheit’, in A. S ildt and W. S midt (eds), ‘Wir wollen mehr Demokratie wagen’: Antriebskrä e, Realität und Mythos eines Verspre ens (Bonn: Dietz, 2019), 41–58. Miard-Delacroix, H. Willy Brandt: Life of a Statesman. London: Tauris Academic Studies, 2016. Miard-Delacroix, H., and R. Hudemann (eds). Wandel und Integration: Deuts französis e Annäherungen der fünfziger Jahre. Muni : Oldenbourg, 2005. Michel, J. Willy Brandts Amerikabild und -politik 1933–1992. Gö ingen: Bonn University Press, 2010. ———. ‘Willy Brandt und die Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika’, in B. Rother (ed.), Willy Brandts Außenpolitik (Wiesbaden: Springer, 2014), 93–160. Mihr, A. ‘Amnesty International, die Menschenrechte und der KSZE-Prozess: Der Fall der DDR’, in M. Peter and H. Wentker (eds), Die KSZE im Ost-WestKonflikt: Internationale Politik und gesellscha liche Transformation 1975–1990 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2012), 233–48. Miquel, M. von. ‘Explanation, Dissociation, Apologia: The Debate over the Criminal Prosecution of Nazi Crimes in the 1960s’, in P. Gassert and A.E. Steinweis

Bibliography | 219

(eds), Coping with the Nazi Past: West German Debates on Nazism and Generational Conflict, 1955–1975 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2006), 50–63. Molnár, M. La démocratie se lève à l’Est. Société civile et communisme en Europe de l’Est: Pologne et Hongrie. Geneva: Graduate Institute Publications, 2014. Morgan, M.C. The Final Act: The Helsinki Accords and the Transformation of the Cold War. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018. Morgan, M.C., and D. Sargent, ‘Helsinki, 1975’, in K. Spohr and D. Reynolds (eds), Transcending the Cold War: Summits, Statecra , and the Dissolution of Bipolarity in Europe, 1970–1990 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 95–121. Morina, C. Legacies of Stalingrad: Remembering the Eastern Front in Germany since 1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Mouffe, C. The Democratic Paradox. London: Verso, 2000. Mundzeck, L. ‘Der “Geist von Erfurt”: Das Gipfeltreffen am 19. März 1970 in der deutschen Presse’, in S. Raßloff (ed.), ‘Willy Brandt ans Fenster!’ Das Erfurter Gipfeltreffen 1970 (Jena: Gera, 2007), 82–100. Münkel, D. ‘Als “deuts er Kennedy” zum Sieg? Willy Brandt, die USA und die Medien’. Zeithistorische Forschungen 1(2) (2004), 173–94. Murphy, J.G. Ge ing Even: Forgiveness and its Limits. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Nakath, D. Deuts -deuts e Grundlagen: Zur Ges i te der politis en und wirts a li en Beziehungen zwis en der DDR und der Bundesrepublik in den Jahren von 1969 bis 1982. Schkeuditz: Schkeuditzer Buchverlag, 2002. Negash, G. Apologia Politica: States and Their Apologies by Proxy. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2006. Newnham, R. ‘More Flies with Honey: Positive Economic Linkage in German Ostpolitik from Bismarck to Kohl’. International Studies Quarterly 44 (2000), 73–96. ———. ‘Economic Linkage and Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik: The Case of the Warsaw Treaty’. German Politics 16(2) (2007), 247–63. Niedhart, G. ‘Ostpolitik: Phases, Short-Term Objectives and Grand Design’. GHI Supplement 1 (2003), 118–36. ———. ‘“The Transformation of the Other Side”: Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik and the Liberal Peace Concept’, in F. Bozo, N.P. Ludlow and M.P. Rey (eds), Visions of the End of the Cold War in Europe, 1945–1990 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2012), 149–62. ———. ‘Transformation through Communication and the Quest for Peaceful Change’. Journal of Cold War Studies 18(3) (2016), 14–59. Njølstad, O. (ed.). The Last Decade of the Cold War: From Conflict Escalation to Conflict Transformation. London: Frank Cass: 2004. ———. ‘The Carter Legacy: Entering the Second Era of the Cold War’, in O. Njølstad (ed.), The Last Decade of the Cold War: From Conflict Escalation to Conflict Transformation (London: Frank Cass: 2004), 196–225. Noa , H.J. Willy Brandt: ein Leben, ein Jahrhundert. Berlin: Rowohlt, 2013. Paffenholz, T. ‘International Peacebuilding Goes Local: Analysing Lederach’s Conflict Transformation Theory and its Ambivalent Encounter with 20 Years of Practice’. Peacebuilding 2(1) (2014), 11–27.

220 | Bibliography

Peter, M. Die Bundesrepublik im KSZE-Prozess 1975-1983: Die Umkehrung der Diplomatie. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015. Pfeil, U. ‘Aus Gegnern wurden Partner: Die Beziehungen zwis en der Bundesrepublik und der Sowjetunion 1969-1990’. Cahiers du MIMMOC no. 17 (2016). Retrieved October 2017 from h ps://journals.openedition.org/mimmoc/2514. Phillips, A.L. ‘The Politics of Reconciliation: Germany in Central-East Europe’. German Politics 7(2) (1998), 64–85. Philpo , D. Just and Unjust Peace: An Ethic of Political Reconciliation. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. Po hoff, H. Im S a en der Mauer: Deuts landpolitik 1961 bis 1990. Berlin: Propyläen, 1999. Powaski, R.E. Return to Armageddon: The United States and the Nuclear Arms Race, 1981–1999. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Prowe, D. ‘Die Anfänge der Brandts en Ostpolitik in Berlin 1961–1963’, in W. Benz and H. Graml (eds), Aspekte deuts er Außenpolitik im 20. Jahrhundert (Stu gart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1976), 249–86. ———. ‘Berlin: Catalyst and Fault Line of German-American Relations in the Cold War’, in D. Junker (ed.), The United States and Germany in the Era of the Cold War, 1945–1990 (Washington: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 1: 165–71. Pyle, A.J. Locke. Cambridge: Polity, 2013. Radzik, L., and C. Murphy. ‘Reconciliation’, in E.N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2015 Edition). Retrieved June 2015 from h ps:// plato.stanford.edu/entries/reconciliation/. Raleigh, D.J. ‘“Soviet” Man of Peace: Leonid Il’ich Brezhnev and His Diaries’. Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 17(4) (2016), 837–68. Ramsbotham, O., T. Woodhouse and H. Miall, Contemporary Conflict Resolution: The Prevention, Management and Transformation of Deadly Conflicts. Cambridge: Polity, 2016. Reißig, R. Dialog dur die Mauer: Die umstri ene Annäherung von SPD und SED. Frankfurt: Campus, 2002. Renner, J. ‘Germany-Poland: The Ritualisation of Apology’, in C. Daase, S. Engert, M.A. Horelt, J. Renner and R. Strassner (eds), Apology and Reconciliation in International Relations: The Importance of Being Sorry (London: Routledge, 2016), 51–70, Rey, M.P. ‘Gorbachev’s New Thinking and Europe, 1985–1989’, in F. Bozo, M.P. Rey, N.P. Ludlow and L. Nuti (eds), Europe and the End of the Cold War: A Reappraisal (London: Routledge, 2008), 23–35. Reynolds, D. Summits: Six Meetings that Shaped the Twentieth Century. London: Penguin, 2008. Richmond, O. The Transformation of Peace. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2005. Richmond, O.P., and R. Mac Ginty. ‘Where Now for the Critique of the Liberal Peace?’. Cooperation and Conflict 50(2) (2015), 171–89. Rigby, A. Justice and Reconciliation: A er the Violence. London: Lynne Rienner, 2001. Roberts, G. The Soviet Union in World Politics: Coexistence, Revolution and Cold War. London: Routledge, 2005.

Bibliography | 221

Rognon, F. ‘Expiation, repentance, pardon et réconciliation: concepts religieux et valeurs des sociétés européennes contemporaines’. Les Cahiers Sirice no. 15 (2016), 15–23. Romero, F. ‘Cold War Historiography at the Crossroads’. Cold War History 14(4) (2014), 685–703. Rother, B. ‘Zwis en Solidarität und Friedenssi erung: Willy Brandt und Polen in den 1980er Jahren’, in F. Boll and K. Ru niewicz (eds), ‘Nie mehr eine Politik über Polen hinweg’: Willy Brandt und Polen (Bonn: Dietz, 2010), 220–63. ——— (ed.). Willy Brandt: Neue Fragen, Neue Erkenntnisse. Bonn: Dietz, 2011. ——— (ed.). Willy Brandts Außenpolitik. Wiesbaden: Springer, 2014. Rother, B., and K. Larres (eds). Willy Brandt and International Relations: Europe, the USA, and Latin America, 1974–1992. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018. Rother, B., and W. Schmidt. ‘Einleitung’, in H. Grebing, G. Schöllgen and H.A. Winkler (eds), Willy Brandt: Berliner Ausgabe (Bonn: Dietz, 2009), 10: 15–111. Rudolph, K. Wirts a sdiplomatie im Kalten Krieg: Die Ostpolitik der westdeuts en Großindustrie, 1945–1991. Frankfurt: Campus, 2004. Saro e, M.E. ‘A Small Town in (East) Germany: The Erfurt Meeting of 1970 and the Dynamics of Cold War Détente’. Diplomatic History 25(1) (2001), 85–104. ———. Dealing with the Devil: East Germany, Détente, and Ostpolitik, 1969–1973. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001. ———. 1989: The Struggle to Create Post-Cold War Europe. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009. Savranskaya, S., and W. Taubman. ‘Soviet Foreign Policy, 1962–1975’, in M.P. Leffler and O.A. Westad (eds), The Cambridge History of the Cold War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010) 2: 134–57. Schaap, A. Political Reconciliation. London: Routledge, 2005. Schildt, A. ‘Mending Fences: The Federal Republic of Germany and Eastern Europe’, in E. Mühle (ed.) Germany and the European East in the Twentieth Century (Oxford: Berg, 2003), 153–79. Schildt, A., and W. Schmidt (eds). ‘Wir wollen mehr Demokratie wagen’: Antriebskrä e, Realität und Mythos eines Versprechens. Bonn: Dietz, 2019. Schildt, A., D. Siegfried and K.C. Lammers (eds). Dynamische Zeiten: Die 60er Jahre in den beiden deutschen Gesellscha en. Hamburg: Hans Christians Verlag, 2003. Schlarp, K.H. ‘Die ökonomische Untermauerung der Entspannungspolitik: Visionen und Realitäten einer deutsch-sowjetischen Wirtscha skooperation im Zeichen der Neuen Ostpolitik’. Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 45 (2005), 77–100. Schmidt, W. Kalter Krieg, Koexistenz und kleine Schri e: Willy Brandt und die Deutschlandpolitik 1948–1963. Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag, 2001. ———. ‘Die Wurzeln der Entspannung: Der konzeptionelle Ursprung der Ostund Deuts landpolitik Willy Brandts in den fünfziger Jahren’. Vierteljahrshe e für Zeitgeschichte 51(4) (2003), 521–63. ———. ‘Willy Brandts Ost- und Deuts landpolitik’, in B. Rother (ed.), Willy Brandts Außenpolitik (Wiesbaden: Springer, 2014), 161–257. S neider, C. Der Wars auer Kniefall: Ritual, Ereignis und Erzählung. Konstanz: UVK Verlagsgesellscha , 2006.

222 | Bibliography

Schoenborn, B. La mésentente apprivoisée: de Gaulle et les Allemands, 1963–1969. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2007. ———. ‘Bargaining with the Bear: Chancellor Erhard’s Bid to Buy German Reunification’. Cold War History 8(1) (2008), 23–53. Schoenborn, B., and G. Niedhart. ‘Erfurt and Kassel, 1970’, in K. Spohr and D. Reynolds (eds), Transcending the Cold War: Summits, Statecra , and the Dissolution of Bipolarity in Europe, 1970–1990 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 15–42. S öllgen, G. Willy Brandt: Die Biographie. Muni : Ullstein, 2003. S önfelder, J., and R. Erices. Willy Brandt in Erfurt: Das erste deuts -deuts e Gipfeltreffen 1970. Berlin: Links, 2010. S röber, U. ‘Zei en der Versöhnung: Der Beitrag der Kir en zur Völkerverständigung na dem Zweiten Weltkrieg’, in C. Defrance and U. Pfeil (eds), Verständigung und Versöhnung na dem ‘Zivilisationsbru ’? Deutschland in Europa nach 1945 (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2016), 569–84. Schwartz, T.A. America’s Germany: John J. McCloy and the Federal Republic of Germany. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991. ———. Lyndon Johnson and Europe: In the Shadow of Vietnam. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003. ———. ‘“No Harder Enterprise”: Politics and Policies in the German-American Relationship, 1945–1968’, in D. Junker (ed.), The United States and Germany in the Era of the Cold War, 1945–1990 (Washington: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 1: 29–43. ———. ‘Legacies of Détente: A Three-Way Discussion’. Cold War History 8(4) (2008), 513–25. S warz, H.P. Adenauer: Der Staatsmann 1952–1967. Stu gart: Deuts e VerlagsAnstalt, 1991. ———. Helmut Kohl: Eine politis e Biographie. Munich: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 2012. Schwok, R. La construction européenne contribue-t-elle à la paix? Lausanne: Presses polytechniques et universitaires romandes, 2016. Seebacher, B. Willy Brandt. Muni : Piper, 2006. Seibt, F. Deuts land und die Ts e en: Ges i te einer Na bars a in der Mi e Europas. Muni : Piper, 1993. ———. Deuts e, Ts e en, Sudetendeuts e: Analysen und Stellungnahmen zu Ges i te und Gegenwart aus fünf Jahrzehnten. Muni : Oldenbourg, 2002. Selvage, D. ‘The Treaty of Warsaw: The Warsaw Pact Context’. GHI Bulletin Supplement 1 (2003), 67–79. ———. ‘Transforming the Soviet Sphere of Influence? U.S.-Soviet Détente and Eastern Europe, 1969–1976’. Diplomatic History 33(4) (2009), 671–87. Senoo, T. Ein Irrweg zur deuts en Einheit? Egon Bahrs Konzeptionen, die Ostpolitik und die KSZE 1963–1975. Frankfurt: Peter Lang 2011. Shepherd, L.J. Gender Ma ers in Global Politics: A Feminist Introduction to International Relations. London: Routledge, 2010. Shimazu, N. ‘Diplomacy as Theatre: Staging the Bandung Conference of 1955’. Modern Asian Studies 48(1) (2014), 225–52.

Bibliography | 223

Siegfried, D. ‘Zwis en Aufarbeitung und S lussstri : Der Umgang mit der NSVergangenheit in den beiden deuts en Staaten 1958 bis 1969’, in A. S ildt, D. Siegfried and K.C. Lammers (eds), Dynamis e Zeiten: Die 60er Jahre in den beiden deuts en Gesells a en (Hamburg: Hans Christians Verlag, 2003), 77–113. ———. ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger: Youth, Pop Culture, and the Nazi Past’, in P. Gassert and A.E. Steinweis (eds), Coping with the Nazi Past: West German Debates on Nazism and Generational Conflict, 1955–1975 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2006), 144–60. Skaar, E., S. Gloppen and A. Suhrke (eds). Roads to Reconciliation. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2005. Snyder, S.B. Human Rights Activism and the End of the Cold War: A Transnational History of the Helsinki Network. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Sodaro, M.J. Moscow, Germany, and the West from Khrushchev to Gorbachev. London: Tauris, 1991. Soutou, G.H. La guerre de Cinquante Ans: Les relations Est–Ouest 1943–1990. Paris: Fayard, 2001. Speicher, P. The Berlin Origins of Brandt’s Ostpolitik, 1957–1966. University of Cambridge: unpublished PhD thesis, 2001. Sperber, R. ‘Grundzüge eines Europäis en Si erheits-Systems’. Neue Politik, 22 June 1968. Spohr, K. ‘German Unification: Between Official History, Academic Scholarship, and Political Memoirs’. The Historical Journal 43(3) (2000), 869–88. ———. ‘Helmut Schmidt and the Shaping of Western Security in the Late 1970s: the Guadeloupe Summit of 1979’. The International History Review 37(1) (2015), 167–92. ———. The Global Chancellor: Helmut Schmidt and the Reshaping of the International Order. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Spohr, K., and D. Reynolds (eds). Transcending the Cold War: Summits, Statecra , and the Dissolution of Bipolarity in Europe, 1970–1990. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. Stefanova, B. The Europeanisation of Conflict Resolutions: Regional Integration and Conflicts from the 1950s to the 21st Century. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011. Stenersen, Ø., I. Libæk and A. Sveen. The Nobel Peace Prize: Laureates 1901-2016. Oslo: The Norwegian Nobel Institute, 2018. Stent, A. From Embargo to Ostpolitik: The Political Economy of West German-Soviet Relations 1955–1980. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Stern, C. Willy Brandt. Reinbek: Rowohlt, 2002. Sturm, D.F. Uneinig in die Einheit: Die Sozialdemokratie und die Vereinigung Deuts lands 1989/90. Bonn: Dietz, 2006. Taylor, C. Philosophical Arguments. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995. The Independent Commission on Disarmament and Security Issues. Common Security: A Programme for Disarmament. London: Pan Books, 1982. Thomas, D.C. The Helsinki Effect: International Norms, Human Rights, and the Demise of Communism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001.

224 | Bibliography

Tomala, M. Deutschland – von Polen gesehen: Zu den deutsch-polnischen Beziehungen 1945–1990. Marburg: Schüren, 2000. Tra tenberg, M., and C. Gehrz, ‘America, Europe, and German Rearmament, August-September 1950’. Journal of European Integration History 6(2) (2000), 9–36. Tutu, D. No Future without Forgiveness. London: Rider, 1999. Vaïsse, M. La grandeur: Politique étrangère du général de Gaulle 1958–1969. Paris: Fayard, 1998. Vassilieva, N. ‘L’URSS et le développement des relations de la France avec les pays de l’Europe de l’Est (Pologne et Roumanie)’, in M. Vaïsse (ed.), De Gaulle et la Russie (Paris: CNRS, 2006), 205–11. Verdeja, E. Unchopping a Tree: Reconciliation in the A ermath of Political Violence. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2009. Vogtmeier, A. Egon Bahr und die deuts e Frage: Zur Entwi lung der sozialdemokratis en Ost- und Deuts landpolitik vom Kriegsende bis zur Vereinigung. Bonn: Dietz, 1996. Waltz, K.N. Theory of International Politics. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1979. Walzer, M. Thick and Thin: Moral Argument at Home and Abroad. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994. Weber, P.R. ‘“Normalisierung”: Deuts -ts e oslowakis e Beziehungen in ihrem lokalen geopolitis en Dreie DDR-ČSSR-BRD (1965–1973)’, in M. Řezník and K. Rosenbaum (eds), DDR und ČS(S)R 1949–1989: Eine Beziehungsges i te am Anfang (Muni : Martin Meidenbauer, 2012), 51–74. Weisberg, J. Ronald Reagan. New York: Henry Holt, 2016. Wenger, A., V. Mastny and C. Nuenlist (eds). Origins of the European Security System: The Helsinki Process Revisited, 1965–75. Oxon: Routledge, 2008. Wilkens, A. ‘New Ostpolitik and European Integration: Concept and Policies in the Brandt Era’, in N.P. Ludlow (ed.), European Integration and the Cold War: Ostpolitik – Westpolitik, 1965–1973. London: Routledge, 2007, 67–80. ———. (ed.). Wir sind auf dem richtigen Weg: Willy Brandt und die europäische Einigung. Bonn: Dietz, 2010. ———. ‘Kniefall vor der Ges i te: Willy Brandt in Wars au 1970’, in C. Defrance and U. Pfeil (eds), Verständigung und Versöhnung na dem ‘Zivilisationsbru ’? Deuts land in Europa na 1945 (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2016), 83–102. Wolbring, B. ‘Nationales Stigma und persönli e S uld: Die Deba e über Kollektivs uld in der Na kriegszeit’. Historische Zeitschri no. 289 (2009), 325–64. Wolff-Powęska, A. Memory as Burden and Liberation: Germans and their Nazi Past (1945–1990). Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2015. Wolffsohn, M., and T. Bre enma er. Denkmalsturz? Brandts Kniefall. Muni : Olzog, 2005. Wolfrum, E. Die geglü te Demokratie: Ges i te der Bundesrepublik Deuts land von ihren Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart. Stu gart: Kle -Co a, 2006. ———. Die Mauer: Ges i te einer Teilung. Muni : Be , 2009. Woyke, M. (ed.). Partner und Rivalen: Der Briefwe sel (1958–1992). Bonn: Dietz, 2015.

Bibliography | 225

Young, J.W. ‘Western Europe and the End of the Cold War, 1979–1989’, in M.P. Leffler and O.A. Westad (eds), The Cambridge History of the Cold War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010) 3: 289–310. Zimmermann, H. ‘The Improbable Permanence of a Commitment: America’s Troop Presence in Europe during the Cold War’. Journal of Cold War Studies 11(1) (2009), 3–27. Zubok, V.M. Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007.

Websites digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org history.state.gov usa.usembassy.de www.bundestag.de www.crassh.cam.ac.uk www.cvce.eu www.europa.eu www.fes.de www.j library.org www.jimmycarterlibrary.gov www.justice.gov.za www.nato.int www.nobelprize.org www.osce.org www.php.isn.ethz.ch www.presidency.ucsb.edu www.radio.cz www.reaganlibrary.gov www.willy-brandt.de www.willy-brandt-biography.com

INDEX

(

Abelard, Peter, 35 Abrassimov, Pyotr, 47–48, 72–73, 88n41, 118 Adenauer, Konrad, 4, 46–47, 52–53, 56n29, 72, 82, 153, 204 and contacts with East, 82, 113, 136 and German Nazi past, 63–65, 111 Willy Brandt and, 39–40, 44 Afghanistan, 167, 169, 178, 184 Albania, 145, 147 Albertz, Heinri , 5, 41 Alexandrov-Agentov, Andrei, 121 Amerongen, O o Wolff von, 136 Amrehn, Franz, 47 Andropov, Yuri, 94, 168–69, 177 Angola, 166 Apunen, Osmo, 150, 161n60 Arbatov, Georgi, 183 Arendt, Hannah, 60 on Eichmann trial, 66 and German Nazi past, 19, 44–45, 66, 110 Willy Brandt and, 21 arms race, 94, 166, 168, 174 Arndt, Adolf, 45, 68 Auschwitz, 67, 69, 108–9, 112, 146 trial, 66–67, 69, 87n28 Australia, 9 Austria, 39, 46, 148, 152, 156, 172, 182, 186, 203 Averroes (Ibn Rushd), 35 Bahr, Egon, 20, 69, 76–80, 113, 181, 182–83, 187

Bahr Paper (1970), 119, 150 Hahn affair (1973), 77, 152–54 negotiator, 5, 13, 48, 100, 115–19, 122, 132, 137–38, 146, 151, 155, 198 planning papers, 7–8, 77–79, 103, 151–52, 181 secret networks, 11, 25, 48, 198 and Willy Brandt, 5–6, 41, 55n12, 78, 116, 119, 122, 155–57 Barzel, Rainer, 105, 133 Basic Treaty (1972), 93, 138, 149 Bauer, Fritz, 68 Beitz, Berthold, 113, 136 Beletzki, Viktor, 48 Belgium, 52, 79–80, 82, 151, 189 Bender, Peter, 144 Beria, Lavrentii, 38 Berlin, 140 ‘Berlin blo ade’ (1948–49), 3, 50–51 Berlin crisis (1958–61), 4, 31–35 Berlin Wall, 4–5, 11, 31–34, 43, 48–49, 101, 120, 165, 172, 174, 187–88, 196 Four Powers and, 32–35, 46–47, 93, 132, 138, 150 Kennedy’s visit (1963), 48 status of, 3, 32–33, 93, 117, 132, 142 travel pass agreements, 11, 25, 48, 196 Bil’ak, Vasil, 115–16, 127n84 Böll, Heinri , 65 Boulding, Kenneth, 76, 97 Braithwaite, Rodric, 150

228 | Index

Brandt, Lars, 4, 7 Brandt, Ma hias, 4 Brandt, Peter, 4, 22, 155 Brandt, Rut, 3–5, 37, 70, 166 Brandt, Willy biographical sketch, 2–5 chairman of SPD, 4, 164, 170, 182–85 chancellor of FRG, 4, 12–13, 92–93, 129–35, 165, 199 family, 2–5, 34, 166, 190 as figure of atonement, 19, 107–11, 203 foreign minister of FRG, 4, 11–12, 69–76, 82–85 Guillaume affair, 5, 165 health, 70, 134, 165–66, 190 Herbert Frahm (birth name), 2 mayor of West Berlin, 4, 11, 31–35, 40, 46–47, 51 Nobel Peace Prize, 4, 20, 27, 133 North-South Commission, 5, 164 personal criticism of, 15n5, 39–40, 45, 47, 70, 133–34, 177–78 president of Socialist International, 5, 164, 177 retrospective perception of, 9, 202–4 as role model, 1, 9, 111, 203–4 Brentano, Heinri von, 46 Brezhnev, Leonid, 73, 84, 94–95, 104, 118, 137, 141, 167–68, 172, 177 and détente, 93–95, 120, 148–49, 151–52, 166–67, 169 and Nazi Germany, 94, 120, 197 and Ostpolitik, 94–95, 118, 201 and Prague Spring, 94 visit to Bonn (1973), 140–41, 156 and Willy Brandt, 116, 120–22, 132, 139, 148, 151, 156, 169, 181, 191n18, 197, 201 Brown, Ar ie, 168 Brüning, Heinri , 2 Bukovsky, Vladimir, 202 Bulgaria, 13, 82, 137, 141, 145, 151, 182 Bundestag, 3–4, 39, 68, 70, 80, 105, 113–14, 129, 133, 145, 153, 175, 197 elections of, 4, 40, 51, 92, 122n2, 133 Bundeswehr, 39 Bundy, McGeorge, 84, 90n83

Canada, 147 Carter, Jimmy, 166–67, 169 Ceaușescu, Nicolae, 73, 178 Chalfont, Alun, 80 Chernenko, Konstantin, 169 China, People’s Republic of, 94, 132, 166, 203 Christianity, 9, 17, 35–37, 62, 110, 204 churches, 36, 56n16, 110, 113, 173, 176 and coexistence, 35–36 and reconciliation, 17–18, 25, 28n2, 62, 86n9, 113 Christian Democratic Union (CDU), 46–47, 53, 92, 122n2, 133, 170, 175, 177 and German Nazi past, 44–45, 49, 53, 63–65, 68, 180 grand coalition with SPD, 4, 61, 69–71, 203 and Ostpolitik, 4–5, 70, 118, 129, 133, 153, 179, 201 Christian Social Union (CSU), 4, 68, 133, 175, 180. See also Christian Democratic Union Churchill, Winston, 52 coexistence, 23, 26, 35–37, 147 Bertrand Russell on, 37 competition, 35, 37–38 focus on military security, 11, 22, 36–38, 41–42, 169, 178–79, 198–99 and reconciliation, 11, 20, 42, 70–71, 198 religions and, 11, 35–36 Soviet Union and, 38, 42 toleration, 22, 31, 36–37 United States and, 38 Willy Brandt and, 11, 23, 27, 35–46, 169, 174, 199 Cold War, 37–39, 135 beginning of, 3, 50–51 and coexistence, 36–37, 42, 164 end of, 14, 25, 106, 144, 165, 168, 172–73, 179, 189, 199, 201–2 in Asia, 38–39 and Ostpolitik, 1, 99, 142, 147 and reconciliation, 6, 12, 27, 49–50, 55, 76, 81, 116, 165, 199–201 role of individual leaders, 5, 98 ‘Second Cold War’, 14, 167, 184

Index | 229

COMECON (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance), 80, 89n71, 94, 141, 185 Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), 80, 117, 147–51, 171–74 Helsinki Final Act, 13, 147–50, 171–74 human rights and grassroots, 148, 172–74, 176, 202 middle-range negotiations, 148, 172 Ostpolitik and, 13, 147–51, 172, 174 top leaders, 147–48, 172–73 Willy Brandt’s evaluation of, 13, 174–75, 189, 198 Cortright, David, 97 Crimea, 116, 120–22, 130, 151, 203 Crocker, David, 11, 26 Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), 34, 41, 47–48 Cyrankiewicz, Józef, 107–8, 112–13 Czechoslovakia, 79, 87n34, 94–95, 151, 173, 180, 182, 189 Charter 77, 173 and East Germany, 115 invasion of (1968), 26, 75, 81, 85, 94, 115, 144, 167 Prague Spring (1968), 26, 94–95, 115 and reconciliation, 114–15, 143–44, 200–201 and Soviet Union, 115, 130, 177–78 and West Germany, 13, 26, 70–71, 93, 114–16, 137, 141–44, 200 Dedecius, Karl, 146 Denmark, 135, 151, 189 détente, 20, 29n18, 82–85, 93–95, 97, 132, 149, 152, 166, 184, 202 Ostpolitik and, 1, 20, 72, 77–78, 93, 117, 119–20, 122, 153–54, 169, 182 Dienstbier, Jiří, 180, 202 Dietzfelbinger, Hermann, 113 disarmament, 13, 72, 78, 80–81, 97, 122, 132, 138, 148, 151–54, 165–66, 168–70, 174, 183–85, 189, 202 Dodds, Graham, 97 Dönhoff, Marion, 113, 146

Döpfner, Julius, 113 Dubček, Alexander, 85, 94, 115 Duckwitz, Georg Ferdinand, 106, 115 East Germany. See German Democratic Republic Ehmke, Horst, 5, 10, 104, 134 Ei mann, Adolf, 66 Eisenhower, Dwight David, 51, 61 Elysée Treaty (1963), 54, 200 energy crisis, 135 Erfurt, 99–103, 105–6, 112–13, 118, 130 Erhard, Ludwig, 4, 53, 70–71, 82, 136 Ethiopia, 166 Euratom, 52 European blueprints (pan-European), 13, 49, 84, 181, 188–89 common European home, 185–86 European peace order, 71, 76, 80– 81, 89n73, 93, 148, 150, 156, 166, 182, 185–87 European security system, 7–8, 77–81, 119, 151, 155, 187–89 See also Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), 52, 54 European Communities (EC), 4–5, 82, 135, 137, 150, 153–54, 185, 187, 189, 202 European Economic Community (EEC), 52–54, 80, 84, 94, 104, 125n46 European unification process, 4, 20, 51–55, 180, 201 and Eastern Europe, 52–54, 137, 189, 201–2 and Ostpolitik, 54–55, 154 as reconciliation, 49, 51–52 Willy Brandt and, 9, 53–54, 189 European Union (EU), 53, 137, 189, 201 expellees, German, 114, 135–36, 140, 143 Falin, Valentin, 118–19, 202 Fall, Brian, 97, 123n18 Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, West Germany), 68, 71–72, 74–75, 92, 99, 111, 117, 151, 166, 188 and Berlin, 132, 138 chancellery, 31, 99, 115, 152

230 | Index

foreign ministry (Auswärtiges Amt), 10, 34, 70, 78, 115, 119, 150–51 and NATO, 33, 39–40, 49, 51, 54, 56n29, 77, 81, 101, 104, 147, 150, 152–54, 188 rearmament of (1955), 39, 101 and Western integration, 39, 49, 51–53, 153, 180 Feldman, Lily Gardner, 10, 18, 97, 147 Finland, 145–52, 172 First World War, 2, 74 Focke, Katharina, 5 Ford, Gerald, 166 Four Powers, 3, 61, 72, 78–79, 93, 101, 104, 117, 119, 132, 154, 156 Frahm, Ludwig, 2 Frahm, Martha, 2 Frahm, Ninja, 3 France, 3, 79, 82, 132, 149, 153, 156, 166, 179 and East–West relations, 39, 84–85, 122, 178 Franco–German reconciliation, 27, 50–54, 75–76, 112, 116, 200 and German Nazi past, 85 and Germany, 3, 39, 46 and Ostpolitik, 84–85, 98, 132, 153–54 Frank, Anne, 65 Frank, Paul, 115–16, 151 Free Democratic Party (FDP), 80, 133, 180 coalition with SPD, 4, 92, 115–16, 122n2, 129–36, 180 and German Nazi past, 68 See also Walter Scheel Garton Ash, Timothy, 177–78, 192n48 Gasperi, Alcide de, 52 Gaulle, Charles de, 33 and East–West relations, 49, 84–85 and US, 54, 84, 156 Willy Brandt and, 84–85 Gawęda, Krzysztof, 109 Gens er, Hans-Dietri , 180 German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), 147 German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany), 47, 182–83, 188 and Berlin, 31–33, 100–101

and German Nazi past, 64–65, 86n16, 104–5, 119 and Soviet Union, 48–49, 99–100, 104, 137–38, 141, 159n32, 172, 177 and West Germany, 13, 23, 64–65, 68–69, 72, 77–78, 88n37, 92–93, 97–106, 137–41, 165–66, 171–72, 182–83 See also recognition Germany, 175 division of, 3, 8, 23, 34, 39, 75, 79, 101, 104, 133–34, 201 reunification of (1990), 5, 77, 165, 171, 187–89, 201 Gierek, Edward, 114, 142, 145–47, 175, 177 Giscard d’Estaing, Valéry, 166–67 Globke, Hans, 65 Glotz, Peter, 5 Goebbels, Joseph, 61, 184 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 129 Gomułka, Władysław, 72, 108, 112–14 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 14, 178 and East–West relations, 164–65, 168, 171–72, 181, 183–88, 202 and Germany, 77, 172, 186–88 Helsinki process and, 173 Willy Brandt and, 165, 183, 185–88, 202 Grass, Günter, 65, 113 Gromyko, Andrei, 84, 94, 117–19, 150 Gufler, Bernard, 46 Guillaume, Günter, 165 guilt, German, 60–64, 66–68, 110 denial of, 44–45, 60–61, 63–65, 68–69 Karl Jaspers on, 61–62 Willy Brandt and, 19, 44, 60, 61–63, 75, 108, 134, 144 See also Nazi crimes Hahn, Walter, 152–53, 162n74 Hallstein Doctrine, 72, 88n37 Harpprecht, Klaus, 5 Harvard University, 40–41, 83, 131, 136 Heath, Edward, 153 Heinemann, Gustav, 99, 165 Henderson, Ni olas, 153 Hillenbrand, Martin, 151 Himmler, Heinri , 61

Index | 231

Hitler, Adolf, 2–3, 8, 12, 33, 44, 53, 61, 63, 65–66, 73–75, 101, 106, 119–20 Honecker, Erich, 104, 138, 159n32, 172, 178 Willy Brandt and, 182–83 Horn, Gyula, 202 Hrynkiewicz, Janusz, 113 Hungary, 151, 173, 177–78, 182, 186, 189, 200–201 Soviet invasion of (1956), 38, 40, 116, 167 and West Germany, 13, 82, 137, 141–42, 145, 169, 171, 182, 202 Hurwitz, Harold, 41 Husák, Gustáv, 115, 144 Iceland, 183–84 ideologies, East–West, 41–42, 95, 100– 101, 118, 130–31, 140, 167, 181 analogy to religions, 36–37, 148 confrontation of, 35, 38, 49–50, 55, 64–65, 73, 96–97, 104, 106, 115, 118, 120, 139, 145, 166–67, 172 irreconcilability of, 7, 11, 38, 41, 169, 185 Willy Brandt and, 7, 11, 15n13, 34, 36–37, 41–43, 57n36, 74, 130, 169, 174, 185, 202 Ikeda, Daisaku, 164 India, 39, 167 Iran, 167 Ireland, Republic of, 135 Israel, 66, 69, 87n22, 116, 180 Arab-Israeli War (1973), 5, 135 Italy, 52–53, 82, 151 Japan and war crimes, 126n64 comparison with Germany, 9, 111, 126n64, 203 Jaruzelski, Wojciech, 177–78, 186 Jaspers, Karl, 61–63, 86n6, 86n8, 120 influence of, 12, 62–63, 68, 75, 108 Jędrychowski, Stefan, 113 Jews, 35, 62, 66, 68–69, 107 anti-Semitism, 65, 108, 125n59 monuments to, 66, 107–9, 111, 134 Nazi persecution of, 62, 65–69, 86n8, 106–9, 180 See also Nazi crimes Johnson, Lyndon Baines, 82–83, 132

on reconciliation, 82 Willy Brandt and, 51, 82–83, 199 Judt, Tony, 63 Kania, Stanisław, 177 Kant, Immanuel, 136 Kassel, 102–6, 112, 130, 137, 139 Kateb, George, 110 Kekkonen, Urho Kaleva, 150 Kennedy, John Fitzgerald and Berlin, 33–34, 48 and coexistence, 40 Willy Brandt and, 33–34, 40, 51, 57n30, 59n65 Khrushchev, Nikita, 38, 82, 94 aborted meetings with Brandt, 46–49 and Berlin, 32–33 on coexistence, 38 Kiesinger, Kurt Georg, 4, 53, 80 Nazi past of, 65, 86n17 and Ostpolitik, 69–72, 78, 88n41 Kim Dae Jung, 203 Kissinger, Henry, 83, 135, 203 and Egon Bahr, 83–84, 90n83, 154 and Ostpolitik, 83, 132, 154, 201 on reconciliation, 154 Klarsfeld, Beate, 65 Kliszko, Zenon, 113 Kniefall (1970), 107–8, 131, 196, 202 as apology, 9, 97, 108 background of, 9, 60, 75, 106–8 contemporary reactions to, 108–11 interpretations of, 9, 110–11, 180, 200 Kohl, Helmut, 53, 165, 170, 180, 184, 188 and German Nazi past, 180 and Ostpolitik, 5, 172, 175, 179–80, 201 Kohl, Mi ael, 104–5, 137–38 Korea, Republic of, 203 Kosygin, Alexei, 83–84, 118–20 Kreisky, Bruno, 3, 46, 148 Krzemiński, Adam, 109 Kusterer, Hermann, 110 Lederach, John Paul, 11, 23–26, 29n31, 46, 54, 95–96, 111, 118, 138, 172 Lenin, Vladimir Ilyi , 38 Lenz, Siegfried, 113

232 | Index

Lessing, Go hold Ephraim, 35, 37 Nathan the Wise, 35, 37 Lind, Jennifer, 9, 126n64 Lindenberg, Klaus, 5 Lintz, Rita, 5 Locke, John, 31, 36–37, 41, 56n16 Loth, Wilfried, 183 Löwenthal, Ri ard, 41 Luns, Joseph, 80, 154 Luther, Martin, 204 Luxembourg, 52, 79, 151, 189 Maas, Heiko, 203 Macmillan, Harold, 33 Macovescu, George, 81, 151, 156 Maier, Charles, 50 Maimonides, Moses, 35 Malenkov, Georgi, 38 Mandela, Nelson, 17 Mansfield, Mike, 79, 152 mass demonstrations, 25, 30n37, 186 in East Germany, 101, 186 in France, 85 in Poland, 114, 176–77 in West Berlin, 33 in West Germany, 61, 65, 68–69, 105, 170 Mazowiecki, Tadeusz, 186 McCarthy, Joseph, 41 Miall, Hugh, 11, 26, 165 military alliances, possible abolition of, 76–80, 119, 152–57, 166, 188 Egon Bahr and, 7, 77–79, 119, 155, 181, 189 Four Powers and, 13, 77, 83–84, 147, 153–54 and reconciliation, 8, 77, 155–56 Willy Brandt and, 8, 77, 79–81, 155–57, 182, 185, 188–89 Moczar, Mieczysław, 108 Möller, John, 2 Molotov, Vyacheslav, 38, 116 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (1939), 116 Monnet, Jean, 52 Mouffe, Chantal, 22 Munich Agreement (1938), 71, 87n34, 115, 142–44 Murphy, Colleen, 18 Murphy, Jeffrie, 18

Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions (MBFR), 132, 151–52, 154, 156, 174 Myrdal, Alva, 3 Nazi crimes, 66, 68–69, 96, 99, 106, 108, 111, 115, 135, 144, 180–81, 196 amnesty, 63–64, 86n13 compensations and reparations, 62, 64, 74–75, 111, 114, 145–46, 175 concentration camps, 61, 66–67, 180 (see also Auschwitz) prosecution for, 61–64, 66–68 remembrance, 66–67, 74, 105, 107–8, 144, 146, 180 responsibility and ‘political liability’, 8, 12, 61–65, 74–75, 97, 108, 131, 134, 146, 180–81 Nazi past, coming to terms with, 1, 7–9, 201 inner reconciliation (Aussöhnung im Innern), 19, 44–45, 57n47, 75, 102, 124n34, 140 as precondition for Ostpolitik, 44, 60 societal debates in West Germany, 12, 44–46, 49, 60–61, 65–69, 180 truth finding, 60–62, 66, 69, 180 Willy Brandt and, 8, 19, 44–45, 57n47, 61–63, 73–75, 86n11, 99, 105–12, 114, 116, 119–20, 178, 181, 196–97 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 39 Netherlands, 52, 79, 151, 189 Neumann, Franz, 40 Niedhart, Go fried, 10, 136 Nikezić, Marko, 84 Nixon, Ri ard, 51 and East–West relations, 83, 95, 152 and Ostpolitik, 83, 132, 141, 152, 154 Non-Proliferation Treaty (1968), 72, 83, 92, 149 Norden, Albert, 65 North-South Commission, 5, 164 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 4, 33, 39, 51, 54, 77, 79, 81, 94, 150, 152–54, 156–57, 167 ‘double-track decision’ (1979), 170 Harmel Report (1967), 81 Willy Brandt and, 4, 7–8, 39–40, 51, 54, 80–81, 108, 147, 154, 156, 182, 185, 188–89, 201

Index | 233

See also military alliances Norway, 2–3, 20, 62–63, 70 Norwegian Labour Party, 2–3 nuclear weapons, 83, 92, 98, 138, 168, 170, 183 abolition of, 183–84 areas free of, 72, 79–80, 83, 89n68, 114, 138, 151, 181–82 and coexistence, 36–37, 169 German Nazi past and, 44, 72, 75, 94, 149 reduction of, 78–79, 151, 184 Nuremberg trials (1945–46), 3, 50, 61–64, 66–67, 86n6 Oder–Neiße border, 72, 84, 93, 111–13, 117–18, 133 Ohnesorg, Benno, 68 Ollenhauer, Erich, 39, 46–47 Ostpolitik ambiguities of, 1, 7, 23, 102–3, 119, 130, 150, 153–56, 170, 174–79, 199 Berlin Wall and, 11, 33–35, 43, 55n12 from Berlin, 46–48 criticism of, 4, 7–8, 43, 72–73, 76, 88n41, 98–99, 101, 105, 118, 132–33, 144–45, 153–54, 177–78, 180, 201–2 cultural and scientific co-operation, 41, 49, 71, 104, 111, 114, 117, 136–37, 143–47, 175 dialogue, 1, 4, 14, 41, 76, 81, 93, 105, 121, 142, 145–46, 150, 164, 166, 169–70, 175 economic dimension of, 12–13, 41, 49, 71, 74, 94, 102, 104, 113, 117–18, 125n46, 135–37, 140–42, 145, 167–68, 170–71, 175, 198 and German reunification, 1, 5, 7, 8, 34, 43–44, 48, 77–79, 99–100, 102, 106, 117–18, 130, 140, 145–46, 153, 185–87, 198, 201 grassroots contacts and travel, 11, 13, 25–26, 31, 47–48, 98, 100, 102, 105–6, 138–40, 144, 147, 164, 171–72, 175, 196–97, 200 importance of direct contact, 41–43, 48, 73, 96, 104–6, 120–22, 175

institutionalized networks, 25, 100, 103, 111, 121–22, 130, 137–38, 140–42, 146–47, 164, 175, 198, 202 limits of, 8, 13–14, 46–47, 69–72, 74, 114–16, 118, 131–35, 144, 152, 169 long-term effects of, 14, 141–42, 146–47, 170–72, 198, 202–3, 204n9 middle-range negotiations, 12–13, 48, 71, 97, 99, 103, 105, 113–18, 131, 135, 137–38, 142, 146, 151, 198 moral dimension of, 42, 109, 112, 134, 146, 175 and neutrality, 11, 132, 153, 185 objectives of, 1, 7–8, 12–13, 27, 34, 55, 74–77, 93, 100, 102, 119, 122, 136, 147–48, 153, 156 policy of small steps, 1, 22–23, 43, 48, 83, 156–57 ratification of Eastern Treaties, 114, 133–34, 144–46, 197 as reconciliation policy, 6, 12–13, 20, 27–28, 35, 69–71, 73–76, 106, 111–14, 119, 133, 142, 170, 196 retrospective and prospective features, 12, 107, 111–12, 120, 130–31, 175 role of top leader, 12, 24, 46–47, 92, 96–98, 103, 111, 120–22, 130, 133, 175, 196–97 scholarly debates on, 1, 6–8, 10, 15n16, 77, 131, 155, 162n85, 177– 78, 202, 204n9 unpredictability of, 22–23, 131, 134, 137, 157, 166, 180 Wandel dur Annäherung, 20, 43 youth exchange, 49, 112–13, 200 Pakistan, 167 Palme, Olof, 148, 181 Palme Commission, 181, 183 influence on Gorbachev, 183 peace, 52, 71, 75, 93, 95, 97, 99–101, 116, 119–20, 149, 166, 185, 189 as absence of war, 23, 27, 36, 64, 77, 83, 95, 152, 166, 169–70, 201 interdependence and, 136–37, 142, 198 liberal peace, 136–37

234 | Index

peace treaty, 72, 80, 93, 95–96, 111– 12, 117, 119, 197 Perpetual Peace, 136 stable peace, 76 Willy Brandt and peace research, 27–28, 30n42, 76 Piatkowski, Lucjan, 146 Podgorny, Nikolai, 118 Poland, 79, 151, 173, 182, 189, 200, 202 and East Germany, 113, 177 martial law (1981–83), 177 and reconciliation, 9, 14, 70, 72, 75– 76, 107, 109, 111–14, 130, 146–47, 175–76, 200 and Soviet Union, 112–13, 116, 130, 141, 148, 170–71, 177–78 and West Germany, 13, 70–72, 106–114, 116, 126n79, 137, 141–42, 145–47, 171, 175–76, 180 Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN), 147 Pompidou, Georges, 153, 157, 162n77 and East–West relations, 85, 132, 149 Ponomarev, Boris, 118, 127n95 Portugal, 202–3 Portugalov, Nikolai, 186 Quadripartite Agreement on Berlin (1971), 93, 132, 138, 150 Radzik, Linda, 18 Ramsbotham, Oliver, 11, 26, 49, 165 Rapacki, Adam, 79 Rapacki Plan, 79, 89n68, 113–14, 151, 157 Rapallo, 85, 91n89, 116, 122 Reagan, Ronald and East–West confrontation, 141, 167–69 and East–West co-operation, 183–84 recognition, 12, 23, 75, 95, 117–18, 172, 199 of East Germany, 23, 72, 99, 101, 103, 138–40, 149, 165, 199 and identity, 23, 102–3, 139–40 of Polish borders, 23, 72, 93, 111–13, 199, 202 and reconciliation, 7, 23, 102–3, 140, 199 reconciliation anticipation of community, 2, 8, 11–12, 21, 24, 73, 197, 199

apology, 9, 12, 18–19, 26–27, 69, 75, 97, 108, 110–11, 196 (see also Kniefall) emotion and, 110–111, 134 forgiveness, 17–19, 27, 113, 199 grassroots, 11, 25, 54, 95, 130, 196–97 initiation of, 7, 10, 18, 21, 24, 96–98, 197 justice and, 18, 45 middle-range leaders and, 11, 13, 24–25, 96, 118–19, 123n12, 138, 196–98 and national interest, 8, 43–44, 52 retrospective and prospective features, 2, 10–11, 22 as revolution, 103, 179 scholarly debates on, 1, 9, 18–20 in the second generation, 14, 179, 199 stages of, 11, 26–27, 42, 49, 69, 76, 77, 92, 122, 131, 155, 165, 169, 181, 198–99 thin and thick reconciliation, 11, 26–27, 30n38, 198–99 top leaders and, 7, 11, 12, 22, 24, 95–98, 196–97 unpredictability and uncertainty of, 13, 21–22, 97–98, 131, 157, 165, 198 Renner, Judith, 110 Reuter, Ernst, 42 Reynolds, David, 97 Ribbentrop, Joachim von, 116 Richmond, Oliver, 95 Ritzel, Gerhard, 73, 85 Romania, 82, 84, 177, 202 and Ostpolitik, 12, 71, 73–74, 81, 141, 151, 156, 169, 171 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, 50 Rosen, Klaus-Henning, 5 Rusk, Dean, 49 Russell, Bertrand, 37, 41, 56n20 Russia, 73, 91n89, 189, 201, 203. See also Soviet Union Sahm, Ulri , 99, 104 Saro e, Mary Elise, 188 S aap, Andrew, 7, 10–11, 21–24, 60, 97, 103, 110

Index | 235

S

eel, Walter, 92, 106, 113, 115, 117, 122, 127n85, 143, 150 S iller, Karl, 65 Schmid, Carlo, 68 Schmidt, Helmut, 10, 53, 82 and East–West relations, 134, 142, 146, 165–67, 169–70, 179 and German Nazi past, 146, 197 and Willy Brandt, 134, 166, 170, 203 Schmidt, Wolfgang, 10 Schneider, Christoph, 110 Schröder, Gerhard (CDU), 82 Schröder, Gerhard (SPD), 187, 203 Schulz, Martin, 203 Schumacher, Kurt, 64 Schuman, Robert, 52 Schumann, Maurice, 156 Schüßler, Gerhard, 99, 104 Schütz, Klaus, 5, 40, 55n12 Second World War, 1, 20, 44, 49–50, 61, 72, 76, 135–36, 142, 145 Eastern front, 67, 96, 116, 120, 180, 197 memory of, 67, 94, 96, 107, 111, 115–16, 120, 180, 197 See also Nazi crimes security as a common good, 36 common security, 181–83, 185, 189–90 human security, 179, 189 military security, 13, 39, 56n29, 151, 181, 189 NATO and, 39, 51, 54, 78–79, 81, 94, 101, 152, 154, 167, 170, 185 security for and from Germany, 77–79, 182–83, 186–89 state security, 179 Seebacher, Brigi e, 5, 166, 190 Seibt, Ferdinand, 115 Selvage, Douglas, 112 Shelepin, Aleksandr, 94, 118, 127n95 Siegfried, Detlef, 69 Snyder, Sarah, 173 Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), 2, 39–40, 56n29, 61, 122n2, 133, 185, 189 and East–West relations, 4, 39–40, 46–47, 51, 70–71, 82, 146, 170, 177, 179, 182–83, 185, 203

and German Nazi past, 45–46, 63–65, 68, 180 Willy Brandt and, 2–4, 39–40, 47, 134, 164, 170, 188–89, 203–4 Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), 182 Socialist Workers’ Party (SAP), 2–3 Solidarność, 176–77, 180, 186 Willy Brandt and, 14, 26, 170, 174–79, 199 Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr, 202 South Africa, 17–19 Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), 17–18, 28n4 Soviet Union, 3, 38, 40, 167, 189 and Berlin, 3–4, 32, 47–48, 50, 93, 132 and East–West relations, 13–14, 38, 46, 48–50, 79, 83, 85, 91n89, 93–95, 100, 148–52, 157, 164–72, 174, 183–89 and German Nazi past, 61, 73, 96, 119–20 Moscow Helsinki Group, 173 and Ostpolitik, 76, 92–93, 95, 116–22, 130, 136, 145, 154, 157, 198 and reconciliation, 116, 119–20 and West Germany, 13, 70–71, 88n37, 92–93, 102, 116–22, 129, 140–42, 180, 184 Spaak, Paul-Henri, 52 Spain, 3, 202 Spangenberg, Dietri , 5 Speer, Albert, 63, 86n11 Stalin, Joseph Vissarionovich, 38, 180 Steel, Christopher, 46 Sternberg, Fritz, 40 Stoph, Willi, 98–106, 112, 137, 183 Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT), 93, 152 Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), 168, 184 Strauß, Franz-Josef, 175, 180 Štrougal, Lubomír, 143–44 Suhr, O o, 40 Suslov, Mikhail, 118 Svoboda, Ludvík, 144 Sweden, 3, 63, 148, 181, 202 Switzerland, 39, 148, 172, 183, 198 Szlachcic, Franciszek, 146

236 | Index

Tepavac, Mirko, 81 Thatcher, Margaret, 167, 184 Thomas, Daniel, 173 Thorkildsen, Carlota, 3 Tito, Josip Broz, 73–74 Treaty of Moscow (1970), 12, 93, 112, 115, 117–20, 130, 137–38, 157, 198 and reconciliation, 13, 119–20 Treaty of Prague (1973), 13, 93, 114, 142–45 and reconciliation, 143–44 Treaty of Warsaw (1970), 12, 93, 106, 111–14, 138, 145–46, 177–78, 201–2 and reconciliation, 13, 111–14, 129, 175, 200 Tutu, Desmond, 17–18 Tutzing, 40, 43, 136 Ukraine, 203 Ulbricht, Walter, 33, 43, 47, 64, 72, 99, 104, 119, 138, 159n32 United Kingdom (UK), 3, 46 and East–West relations, 82, 93, 167 and European unification, 51–54, 135 and Ostpolitik, 46, 150, 153–54 United Nations (UN), 117, 138–39, 164, 181 in New York, 27, 40, 89n68, 173, 186 United States (US), 3, 46 and East–West relations, 12, 33–34, 40, 50–52, 79, 82–84, 93, 132, 141, 149, 151–52, 154, 157, 166–69, 174, 183–84

and German Nazi past, 50–51, 61, 63 and Ostpolitik, 46–47, 82–84, 90n83, 132, 141, 152, 154, 157 ‘structural reconciliation’ with Germany, 49–51 Willy Brandt and, 33–34, 40, 51, 79, 82–83, 101, 169, 184 Vietnam War, 39, 69, 79, 83, 94, 166 Vogel, Hans-Jo en, 182, 185 Wałęsa, Le , 176–78 Waltz, Kenneth, 137 Warsaw Pact, 34, 39, 94, 108, 112, 130, 145, 152, 172, 181, 185 Budapest Appeal (1969), 81, 148–49 See also military alliances Wehner, Herbert, 39, 70, 134 and Willy Brandt, 134 Wehrma t, 143, 180, 197 Weizsä er, Ri ard von, 180 Wernicke, Thea, 5 Western European Union (WEU), 70, 79 West Germany. See Federal Republic of Germany Winiewicz, Józef, 106 Wojtyła, Karol Józef (Pope John Paul II), 176 Woodhouse, Tom, 11, 26, 165 Wulff, Christian, 9 Yugoslavia, 12, 71, 73–74, 81, 169, 182 Zubok, Vladislav, 94